


on choosing one's own name, or the quiet strength of being vulnerable.

by harakiridaddy



Series: on choosing one's own name [1]
Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, F/F, F/M, Introspective Waverly Earp, Slow Burn Waverly Earp/Nicole Haught, Trans Female Character, Trans Waverly Earp, waverly earp character study
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-19
Updated: 2020-01-30
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:28:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 44,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21855298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/harakiridaddy/pseuds/harakiridaddy
Summary: waverly knows very little about herself, but she knows all that she does not like about how everyone else sees her.waverly knows not what love feels like, but knows with painful certainty what it does not feel like.nicole is nothing if not patient.nicole is nothing if not giving.
Relationships: Waverly Earp/Nicole Haught
Series: on choosing one's own name [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1778215
Comments: 238
Kudos: 651





	1. On introductions, the past and realizations

On Waverly’s 13th birthday, she decides she should tell her family she is not a boy. Her own name feels strange on her mouth, like a new toothbrush, but warm, welcomed. Craved.

Her aunt cries and does not mention it for almost two months. Her uncle tells her it is okay, but cannot quite meet her eyes, and his worry and discomfort feels like a bruise against her skin, his thumb pressing on it everytime he looks at her.

Wynonna, god bless her, smiles. “Really?” she inquires, not an ounce of malice behind the question. Waverly nods. “Cool. I always wanted a sister” Wynonna adds with finality, the third Earp ignored. Now is not the time.

***

Waverly remembers the first time she realized it was a little more than not being like the other boys. She also remembers how harrowing the realization was, and how easy it was to pretend it was not there.

When she was only ten years old, her school teacher was a strange man called Robert. He saw her, one day, eating lunch by herself inside the library, cheeks red and eyes swollen after crying when one of the girls said she couldn’t play with them. Dolls were for girls, she told Waverly. Waverly wanted to tell her she was a girl, just like them, but didn’t understand it, not really. Not yet.

So she left, sitting by herself surrounded by the comforting smell of old books as she had a quiet conversation with a God she’d already decided she hated, asking him what she’d done to deserve being born so wrong

“Something wrong, kid?” he asked, with that strange, hoarse voice which both scared and amazed Waverly.

“No,” she lied, staring at the uneaten apple in her hands as if it could somehow bring her clarity.

Clarity is such a funny thing for a ten year old to ask for.

“Hm,” he hummed, pulling a chair and sitting down heavily beside her. Waverly could see his hands, right out the corner of her eyes, the shining rings reflecting the early afternoon sun, his middle finger’s nail painted blue. She wondered if maybe, just maybe, he’d understand. “You don’t look too good.”

“I’m fine.” Waverly told him, and herself.

"Alright, then. I guess I’ll just hang around for a while, then,” he said, and before Waverly could even brace herself, her _wrong_ name left his lips like a curse.

The tears came back, and a feeling of betrayal accompanied them, so strong it made her stomach ache.

***

“Mr. Svane?” a ten year old Waverly mutters after the last bell rings, lingering inside the classroom as her classmates run out.

“None of that, kid. It’s Robert,” he replies amicably, leaning down and stage-whispering “or Bobo!” with a smile.

Waverly laughs at the silly nickname her teacher only pretends to dislike. He’s a funny man, she thinks, all flashy clothes and weird hair, but he’s also a good teacher, the kind of teacher who knows exactly what each student needs to learn and grow. Waverly wonders if he knows what she needs, too.

“Bobo,” she starts, and he chuckles, beckoning her to the front of the class. “I’m… Have you ever… Not wanted to be a boy?” Waverly asks, because there is no one else she can ask, no one else who’d listen, who’d care. She braces herself for whatever comes next.

Robert simply stares at her for a second, as if evaluating the situation. He smiles, then, the kindest smile Waverly has ever seen. She feels her heart settling inside her ribs.

“I suppose not,” he starts, tentatively, “but I often wonder what it is like to be a girl.”

Waverly says nothing.

“Do you… Not like being a boy?” he asks, and she notices his mouth opening and closing, as if he was about to say something. Her wrong name, she realizes. He’s avoiding it.

Her heart reaches her throat, then, wild and hungry and desperate.

“I really, really don’t.” she answers, stray tears slowly running down her tiny cheeks.

Robert sits down on his desk, head tilted in thought.

“I suppose… You don’t have to be, do you?” he asks, unsure.

“I don’t want to be a boy,” Waverly concedes. He relaxes.

“You are too pretty to be one, anyways” he smiles, and the giggle that escapes her throat is fresh and crisp from all the hiding, all the suppressing. His smile grows, and he reaches inside his pocket, pulling out his wallet.

Robert Svane, the school teacher with the funny mohawk hands Waverly Earp, ten years of age, with scraped knees and skinny legs, delicate nose and even more delicate lips, a small picture of a smiling man Waverly has never seen before.

“That’s my boyfriend,” Robert tells her, not an ounce of embarrassment, hesitation or guilt in his voice. He was never hiding, Waverly realizes. “He used to teach here, too, but he got a job at the library. We’ve been together for 5 years.”

Waverly eyes are so wide she’s scared she might misplace something, or maybe pop a vessel. She feels like she’s just been told the biggest, most important secret in the world.

It might be, to her, but it is not a secret, never was, not to Robert Svane, an older Waverly would remind herself.

“It wasn’t easy, not at first,” he tells her somberly, “but it was always worth it. I think I knew I was a little different since around your age, too,” he smiles, so fond and caring Waverly has to keep herself from thinking about her dead father’s cold grin. “I can’t tell you I know what to do, kid, and I don’t know what it is like for you. But I’m here for you. Whatever you need.”

Waverly goes home with her fingertips tingling and her own body so light she wonders if she’ll float away.

***

Two days later, Robert asks her what her name is. She tells him she doesn’t know, not yet, and he tells her it’s okay, but she should tell him when she did. He hands her a pamphlet, neatly folded, explaining to her that his boyfriend picked it up in the tiny session very unfortunately labeled ‘Gays’ of the library. Robert apologizes about telling his boyfriend, but Waverly tells him she doesn’t mind, a slight lie, since her heart beats faster with the fact that two (two!) people knew she was not a boy.

She reads about transgender people for the very first time, crying and laughing like a maniac until Wynonna, 15 years of age and a particularly terrible teenager, very kindly tells her to shut the fuck up, you psycho.

Gus, the aunt who’s a better mother than her real one ever was asks her what has gotten into her, she’s been smiling all week. Waverly lets a giggle escape, and Wynonna snorts, telling her she’s girlier than her. Curtis smacks the back of Wynonna’s head with love, and Waverly giggles even more.

***

Waverly borrows a book with baby names from the library (Robert’s boyfriend, Stephen, winks at her), going straight for the ‘W’. She decides she wants something pretty, but strong, and long enough for other people to give her nicknames. She always wanted someone to call her by a nickname.

The name Waverly does not stand out at first, but she tests it on her tongue and it feels so sweet her teeth ache.

***

She feels brave, and reaches out her hand for Robert Svane to shake. He laughs at the gesture before grabbing it, curious.

“Nice to meet you!” Waverly starts, heart pounding so hard she feels like she might pass out. “I’m Waverly Earp.”

He’d never admit to it, but Waverly swears she can see the glint of tears on his eyes when Robert smiles down at her, a firm shake so comforting it feels like a hug.

“I’ve been dying to meet you, Waverly Earp.”

***

Robert Svane gives Waverly his number and his address by the end of the school year, which Waverly gladly accepts. He’s taken a liking to calling her “princess” whenever they’re alone, having lunch in his classroom, and even when she frantically searches for him after a particularly bad day, more often than not involving boy’s bathrooms and name-calling.

He becomes a constant in her life, something solid to hold onto.

***

Two weeks after she reintroduces herself to her family, Wynonna takes her out to buy make-up and new clothes. She sobs inside the fitting room when she puts on her very first skirt, her dainty, small frame making it all too easy to imagine what she could look like. What she will, she tells herself.

She thanks Wynonna profusely, still all red eyes and tear-streaked cheeks. She shrugs it off, saying it was nothing, but Waverly catches her wide smile on the mirror of their shared bedroom.

***

When she tells Robert she’s told her family, he takes her out for ice cream with Stephen, who delicately forces Waverly to add rainbow sprinkles over hers. They tell her they’re proud of her, and remind her she can always count on them.

She’s so thankful for them she feels like she might explode.

***

After that, she decides she will let her hair grow longer, and starts watching Youtube videos to try and figure out how to make her face more feminine.

Her aunt walks in on her, late one afternoon, and the shock of being discovered seeps slowly into her bones, the tube of lipstick suddenly heavy and her own face burning so hot it feels like the half-there make-up will just melt right off.

Gus sighs with a mixture of relief and pain.

“I worry, you know” She says, as if to explain herself. “This town is so… small” she continues, moving closer, gently, as if a movement too quick would scare Waverly away.

Waverly thinks it might. She realizes, a bit later, that the fragility of feeling cornered feels almost adequate. She likes feeling small, in a way. That’s what girls are supposed to be, right?

“I know, Gus” Waverly feels herself smile, almost as if it is second nature. “But I can handle it”.

“I know you can.” She shakes her head, “but you shouldn’t have to”.

***

At 15, she finally convinces her family to let her start her hormone therapy. She’s made a PowerPoint presentation with all information she could think of, explaining not only the medical side of it but her reasoning behind the necessity, including a very painful, very realistic description of what gender dysphoria felt like to her.

She starts off well, but on her third slide she breaks into tears and sobs her way through the rest, the heavy weight of a slow, painful social transition on her shoulders. She feels frustrated, she explains. She _needs_ this more than they could ever know. How can they expect her to be treated like a girl in school if all the girls around her get curvier, daintier, more delicate, and she can feel all her wrong parts growing like cancers, each and every hair which appears on her body a needle prick that doesn’t ever go away? Her hands are so large, she almost screams at Wynonna when she attempts to interrupt the pitiful display with a quiet “maybe you should have some tea?”.

But if nothing else, Waverly is determined, and may hell fall upon this earth if she is not _organized,_ god damn it, so she finished the entire thing in the pre-determined 55 minutes. She runs upstairs afterwards, too ashamed of her own sensitivity.

“Waverly!” Gus yells after her, and Waverly’s mournful tears instantly turn into happy ones. It’s the first time she hears Gus call her by her name without hesitance or discomfort (or snide remarks from Wynonna, for that matter). She still locks herself inside her and Wynonna’s room (Wynonna ripped off the stickers with their names, both of them, from the door one night, after a heated discussion with Gus and Curtis over Waverly’s transition, prompted by the looming closeness of a new school year).

She sobs for hours, but the cancerous growths feel a little less constricting under her own skin.

***

Her endocrinologist is a nice, young woman. She tells Waverly her transition will probably have nice results, since she’s so small already, so feminine. Soft spoken, she quietly asks Waverly what her name is. Waverly panics for a second. She knows the drill: any kind of paperwork requires her _wrong_ name.

“Your actual name, dear” says the doctor, smiling still. “Or do you think I’d give you your first prescription under someone else’s?”

Waverly cries, tears heavy with relief, at her own name smiling back at her. Curtis takes her to the pharmacy, and the clerk doesn’t spare her a second look before turning away to look for what the prescription requires, and Waverly decides this is quite possibly the best day of her life.

***

High school is as awful as one could expect, maybe worse. The burden of her last name pairs itself with the burden of her dead name to create an existence so abhorred each step down the school hallways make her feel like she’s killed someone and does not know about it. She realizes for the first time that maybe it isn’t her lack of curves and large hands which make her peers sneer at her.

You can’t really explain what a color looks like to a colorblind person.

***

When she meets him for the first time, she is so shocked by his interest it takes her a whole two days to even consider texting the number he carelessly jotted down on her AP English textbook.

(He’s on regular English, he told her while he wrote it down in the middle of the school cafeteria. He doesn’t get why anyone would choose to study _more,_ he continues, a charming grin shining down on her like a grail).

***

His name isn’t really Champ, she tells Wynonna, he just likes being called that because he was the best Quarterback in his old school.

“Says who? _Champ?_ ” Wynonna jeers, flipping through one of Waverly’s books as if she’d miraculously learn how to read ancient summerian through osmosis.

“Well… Yeah!” Waverly runs a hand through her long hair, two years since it’s last cut, “But he’s nice. And handsome, too”.

“I don’t know, Waves,” Wynonna replies, poorly concealing her worry with affected casualness on her endless page-flipping, “who even knows this guy?”

“ _Everyone!_ ” Waverly gasps out, “Literally everyone in school worships him and he’s been there for like, one week! He has more friends than I’ve ever had combined!”

“Hey! Quality over quantity” Wynonna points at herself with a grin.

Wynonna’s disbelief is like an echo of her own thoughts. Champs advances were weird at best, unbelievable at worst. Waverly’s not stupid, she remind herself. She’s a transgender Earp, for god’s sake. In Purgatory, that’s probably worse than being a serial killer. Suddenly, she no longer feels like arguing.

***

“Hey!”

Waverly hears it before seeing him, and it surprises her so much she drops her phone on the hardwood floor of the hallway.

Before she can even bend down, Champ picks it up with ease and hands it to her with a smile.

“You never sent me that text.” He says. His tone surrenders nothing beyond amusement. At what, Waverly cannot begin to fathom.

“Yeah, I-“ She starts, but her brain feels like it’s mostly made up by one of those toy monkeys with the drum plates, slowly clanking together. Jesus Christ, Earp, “I just… I wasn’t sure if you… Wanted me to?” She ends with a half-question, shrugging her shoulders slowly.

Champ lets out a heartfelt laugh, and Waverly smiles without noticing.

“Why would I give you my number if I didn’t?” He asks with a genuine smile, “anyways, I guess I can do it the old fashioned way! You wanna go grab something to eat with me sometime?”

***

Champ is not the kind of boy Waverly thinks about when she’s alone, but he’s sweet, surprisingly funny, and calls her by her name, which is more than what she could ask from most people.

His ridiculously big popularity doesn’t seem to take much of a hit after their occasional dates and conversations down the school hallways, and he seems blissfully unaware of the social turmoil he’s causing by letting himself be seen with Waverly.

***

Champ becomes increasingly handsy with her. After a curiously fun date on a local movie theater (Champ insisted on taking her to watch Wonder Woman, since “it’s the perfect mix for us, babe! There’s like, superhero stuff, but also feminist stuff. That’s your thing, isn’t it?”), he asks her if she wants to head over to his house. His parents are home, he tells her, as if to calm her down. She agrees before thinking much of it.

He introduces her as “his Waverly” to his mildly interested parents and she mulls over the title. It’s nice, Waverly thinks. She still gets a little tingly when people call her by her right name, and the obnoxious possessiveness Champ displays is reaffirming. It makes her feel more like herself, she thinks.

He brings her to the backyard, where a quiet pool simmers under the moonlight with a contained calmness. They sit on the same pool chair, knees touching, and he isn’t particularly gentle in his kissing.

His hands go back and forth from her thighs to her hips, and she feels a weird simmering on her stomach, feeling like a spy just about to be discovered, a roomful of armed men staring at her.

“Champ.” She breaks away from him, hand resting softly on his sternum. He pushes against it for a second, but quickly sobers up.

“Yeah, babe?” He asks, smiling.

Waverly feels like she’s standing on thin ice, slowly watching it melt under her feet. She could stay, she thinks, and slowly allow herself to fall in, or risk the shift in pressure it’d take to move. The odds aren’t really all that great.

She sighs. Shifting away from Champ, she notices for the first time an uncomfortable hardness, and feels her cheeks blazing with inadequacy, humiliated and betrayed by her own body.

“What do you… What do you know about me?” Waverly asks, burning a hole on his nice, crisp pool deck.

“Whaddaya mean?” He asks in return, clueless and obnoxious as the day he was born, god bless him.

“You know people don’t really… Like me. In school, I mean” Waverly steps tentatively down a dark room, afraid to reach out her hands and touch something she shouldn’t.

“Don’t be like that, babe.” Champ sighs, as if the mere acknowledgment of her social status pains him, “they’re all just being silly, you know. I keep telling them they should get to know you.”

He’s sweet, Waverly tells herself.

“Well then,” She says, words like cotton on her tongue, “you must know I’m not…” ( _a real girl,_ her brain tells her to say, but she cuts it short).

Her silence hangs heavily around them. Champ stares at her for a long minute, before something clicks into place.

“Oh!” he snaps his fingers as if he’s just reformulated Einstein’s theory of relativity “that you were a boy and all that?” he asks, delicate as ever. Waverly involuntarily cringes at his choice of words, and thankfully, he notices, “that’s now what you’re supposed to say, is it?” he chuckles, “sorry, babe. But yeah, I know. They showed me some pictures and all that.”

_They what?_

“Yeah. So…?” Waverly extends the question. She feels like she’s being a coward, extending so many half-formed phrases for Champ to play catch with. He’s never been good with guessing. Or words, really. Anything involving them.

That’s what she likes about him, too. His desire, his amusement, his attention are all so _palpable,_ always so clear and evident. On their first few dates, she genuinely thought he was playing some kind of game with her, but he’s just not that kind of person. She doesn’t think he could pull something like that even if his life depended on it. When Champ _wants_ her, she knows, as sure as his sweaty, overly excited and wandering hands, his hard erection as subtle as a smack to the face. When he’s amused, he laughs, loud and unashamed, as if he wants the world to know he’s having the time of his damned life. He stares at her, openly, during their shared classes. He holds her hand when they walk together, and runs his heavy hands through her hair whenever he wants.

Champ is so open, so easy. It’s unfair how hard this is.

“You mean like, sex and stuff?” He asks with a twinkle of excitement on his eyes.

“No!” Waverly blushes, “I mean, I guess that too! It’s just… You never mention it and you’re so nice to me! And you’re popular and a football player and everyone hates me in school!” Waverly lets out in a single breath, chastising herself on her vulnerability.

“Ah!” Champ chuckles, as if she’s just told him the silliest thing in the world, “alright, can I be honest with you?”, and Waverly braces herself, but nods anyways. “Like, at first, all my friends were like, dude, you know that’s not a _real_ girl, right?”

Waverly winces, the words not quite a blow, but maybe a twist to an ever-present knife. Champ cringes, apologetic.

“But that’s like, when I just got here! And I was a little curious and all, but then I was thinking and I figured, well she’s still really pretty, so, whatever” he continues, and Waverly tries very hard to ignore the ‘still’, “and I really like you! Honestly, you’re pretty and smart and funny, even when I don’t really get what you’re actually saying.” He says it all with such honesty, as if every word is so easy on his tongue, that Waverly kisses him, fervently, maybe attempting to steal some of that ease, of that simplicity. The aftertaste is sweet and tangy on her tongue.

He laughs, joyful as always, and Waverly realizes he’s relieved.

“Would you ever want me to be your girlfriend?” Waverly asks with a crack on her voice, riding on the wave of vulnerability and self-doubt as if it no longer mattered if her pride was hurt on the way.

“Shit, I haven’t asked you yet?” Champ asks in disbelief, as if the proposal was written just under ‘mow the lawn’ on his to-do list. “You should!”

She tells Wynonna, later, when she’s not so kindly inquired about a hickey on her neck. Waverly explains with a smile so wide she starts worrying about her jaw.

He sister seems shocked with Champ’s decency, and Waverly feels smug for the rest of the night.

***

Champ hardly ever mentions her gender, aside from some questions here and there. As they ease into months of their relationship, Waverly realizes she finds his questions endearing, like an adult with a condescending smile over a toddler asking about the rain.

“How do you know?” he asks her while eating a sub with a, frankly, terrifying speed. Some of his more bearable friends sit on the other side of the cafeteria table, talking amongst themselves. After their relationship was made official, as Champ puts it, the sneers and comments slowly tampered off, and although Waverly was by no means the homecoming queen, she didn’t feel like such a pariah anymore.

“Know what?” She asks, absentmindedly, turning away from her conversation with Chrissy.

“That you’re… A lady and all that” Champ gestures towards his own genitalia. Waverly ignores it.

“I mean… How do you know you’re a guy?” She replies. He laughs, and the world once again acknowledges Champ Hardy is having one hell of a good time.

***

The first time it happens, Champ gladly ignores it.

The second time, he flinches away before regaining his bearings.

“Is that your… You know.” He asks.

Waverly could laugh at the audacity, really, since his own dick is rock hard and insistently pressing against her thigh.

“Yes, Champ. You know about it” She replies, patient as always. He did know, with some detail, after a particularly insensitive comment about surgeries and bathrooms and what women should look like.

He seems to think it over for a second.

“Will I have to, like…” He starts, but doesn’t finish. Waverly isn’t sure if it’s for her sake or his own.

“You don’t _have_ to do anything, Champ” Waverly replies, her patience quickly running out.

“I know, I know, babe! I didn’t mean it like that!” He raises his hands in surrender, and the flex of his biceps reminds Waverly why her patience is still there. “I just… I’m not sure I could like, you know, right now”

Waverly thinks it over. Her first instinct is to ask him just exactly what he thinks she wants him to do, or maybe tell him he shouldn’t expect her to do something he isn’t willing to. She wonders, for a second, if it’s possible to meet someone who wouldn’t be so hesitant, to uncomfortable. The only person who ever really, truly treated her as normal was Wynonna, and even she had some missteps here and there.

But Waverly is nothing if not determined, and her mission through this last leg of high school is to at least have some friends, walk around school without feeling like patient 0 of some highly contagious disease and just get some people to _like_ her for once.

So she shushes him, her breasts rubbing against his bare chest while she kisses him, slowly, before she gets off the bed and down on her knees.

His cum doesn’t feel like his lips, she thinks, her knees aching with carpet burns. It isn’t easy, and the aftertaste isn’t sweet.

***

A day after Waverly’s graduation, she has to go pick Wynonna up at the police station. Her hair is a mess of bobby pins and gel, her make-up has only been partially removed, and she has a pounding headache from her very first real hangover.

(Waverly graduated at the top of her class, and Gus and Curtis both cried during the Ceremony. She almost did, too, when she realized with a start just how many students greeted her, how many knew her name, how many told her how pretty she was. Gus gives her a hug so strong she feels her ribs starting to crack. Her heart soars the entire afternoon, an untamed thing flying wildly over the heads of the entire population of Purgatory.)

(Champ threw a party after, and she drank so much vodka with orange juice she drunkenly told Chrissy and the rest of the cheer squad she’d never ever get the flu again. They all laughed. After everyone left, Champ took her to his room, both still drunk, and had her so selfishly, so roughly, she couldn’t stop herself from crying midway through.

He didn’t notice.

Her heart no longer felt like an uncaged thing, but like an animal, clawing at it’s own limbs to free itself from some unknown prison)


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is some thansphobia and homophobia mentioned by the end of the chapter. Just a heads up.

“It was my graduation yesterday,” says Waverly Earp, arms crossed over her chest, to one Wynonna Earp, who could only be described, with love and care, as an absolute mess.

“Oh, fuck, Waverly!” Wynonna says as she wipes her smeared lipstick with her jacket’s sleeve.

 _Wait, is that mine?_ Thinks Waverly.

“I’m so sorry, kiddo. I really am,” continues Wynonna, regret visible even through her dollar-store sunglasses. She reeks of vomit and cheap whiskey, a truly unfortunate mixture for Waverly’s already quite quivery stomach.

“You’re _sorry?_ Thanks, Wy. That solves it” replies Waverly, stubbornly staring straight ahead instead of facing her sister. “Also, that jacket is _mine._ You ruined it”.

Wynonna stares ahead, too, watching as a middle-aged man with barely-there hair marches inside the police station she just got out from. The station’s parking lot is otherwise empty. Not a lot of crime going around in Purgatory this early on a Sunday, she figures.

“It’s just… You know. This week is hard on me-“

“It’s hard on _you?_ I lost a dad and a sister, too, Wynonna. Not everything is about you!” interrupts Waverly, valiantly holding back tears. The sting grows exponentially, the bitterness insistent and destructive as an invasive species slowly taking over a new habitat.

Wynonna, to her credit, looks adequately chastised, eyes lowering to her own thighs and nails scraping against the loose threads on her shirt. She sighs.

“I know. I’m sorry,” she looks at Waverly, whose frown only deepens with the unwanted attention, “I’m a piece of shit, kid. You deserve better”.

“I don’t care about what I deserve, you idiot! I just…” Waverly sighs, feeling the burn of Wynonna’s stare on her skin. “When you do this, I… It’s like you care more about her than you do about me,” she admits with a whisper. It’s hard being Waverly Earp, she thinks. It’s hard having to fight so hard to get so little.

“Waves… You know that isn’t true,” Wynonna replies with a sigh.

“Sometimes I really don’t,” sighs Waverly, hands running through her hair. “Even when she’s dead I’m under her shadow”.

***

When Waverly was little, too little to heat her own chocolate milk or reach for her toothbrush which sat atop the sink, her father and her older sister died.

A car crash, they told her, and she said she would like to see the car. Did it turn over?

She didn’t understand that dead meant never coming back, so she made her sister’s bed for her, leaving a drawing of the three sisters on the pillow.

Wynonna found it, and asked her why she’d drawn herself with her hair long. Waverly lied and said she thought Tarzan was cool.

She didn’t know why she lied. Not at the time.

Wynonna understood what dead meant already, so she rarely left her room for almost a month, and on her first day back to school she yelled at a teacher and was sent back home. Home was no longer the Homestead, which smelled of old oak and whiskey, but their aunt’s house.

Waverly liked it better, because she shared a room with Wynonna instead of having one of her own. The “no boys allowed” sign which sat over Willa and Wynonna’s room didn’t make it to their new home.

She never quite understood why Wynonna was so sad, since her dad not coming back meant he no longer yielded his belt at them, and Willa not coming back meant Waverly no longer got blackmailed into doing dangerous things in return for Willa not to tell their dad she was playing with their dolls again.

***

Sitting inside Curtis’ jeep, with Wynonna fresh out of jail and her head pounding, Waverly wonders if she’d ever understand how a loss could mean freedom for someone and anguish for another.

***

“You know you don’t have to do this, right?” asks Champ, boredom evident in his every word, fingers fidgeting with his Xbox controller as he waits for Waverly to finish her essay so they can finally go out for dinner.

“I _like_ it, Champ,” replies Waverly, annoyance evident in her every word, the last page of her essay staring back at her, mocking. 19 years of age and deep into her first year of online college, Waverly often wonders if there isn’t _more_ out there. Different cities, different people. A different Waverly, perhaps.

“Don’t you already have a job, though, babe?” asks Champ, clueless as ever. He asks her if she’d like anything before getting up to go get a beer. Tea, she replies.

“I don’t really consider working at Shorty’s as my career goal, Champ,” Waverly answers, loudly enough for him to hear from the kitchen.

His house is probably twice the size of her own, and his parents way less interested than Gus on what they’re doing with themselves. Sometimes Waverly asks him to come over, instead, which is, to him, like a silent “we are not having sex today”. He isn’t too fond of those days.

“We could buy it, though,” he returns, tea in one hand and beer in the other.

“The bar?”

“Yeah! It’d be cool”.

The tea is not quite as warm as Waverly likes it, and she decides she can finish the essay when she gets home. She’s not tired, or bored, but Champ’s nagging interrupts her too often, and she considers her time with ancient languages and cultures sacred.

***

Waverly tells Robert Svane all about her classes when he takes her out for lunch one Sunday. He tells her he always knew she was smart, and asks why she didn’t leave for college.

“I don’t know,” she replies, honestly, “I have Gus and Wynonna here”.

“Wynonna? Sometimes,” he grins, wolfish as always.

“Don’t remind me,” she groans, but smiles anyways. He gets it. He always does. “It’s so expensive, too. I already spend so much with doctors and medication and all that. Gus doesn’t need that”.

She thinks of Curtis for a second. He always wanted her to leave Purgatory. She’d go far, he’d say as he stroked her hair. He liked it better after she let it grow, and made sure to tell Waverly that as often as possible.

A heart attack took him away just a few months after she graduated. She decided, then, that she couldn’t leave Gus and Wynonna. The mere thought of leaving Wynonna with Gus made Waverly feel like another heart attack in the family would be almost a given. It’s funny, Waverly thinks. Curtis would probably off himself all over again if he knew he was the reason Waverly never left, never did what he wanted her to do.

What she wanted to do.

“You’re not a burden, princess,” Robert reminds her, all kind smiles and soft eyes under a layer of fur coats and strange haircuts. In moments like these, Waverly knows exactly why Stephen loves him so much.

“I know. It’s just complicated, you know. This town has a way of just… Keeping you in it”.

“Well, I’m glad you’re here. Purgatory wouldn’t be the same without you”.

***

Waverly invites Champ over for Christmas, after some probing on Gus’ part.

He surprises Waverly with a bouquet of flowers, and brings a pie he bought at the supermarket for Gus.

In moments like these, she tries to remind herself she could’ve done much worse.

***

“Not with Mr. _Champignon_ today?” asks Wynonna, snickering over her own exaggerated French accent. She sips on a glass of wine, legs resting on Waverly’s thighs as they watch Hell’s Kitchen reruns (Waverly likes watching the contestants cook, Wynonna loves watching Gordon Ramsay yelling at them as they do so).

“Not employed today?” Waverly bites back, swiftly receiving a kick to the boob in return. Maturity is as rare as good fortune in the Earp lineage. “He’s on a ski trip with his parents”.

“Fancy,” Wynonna seems absolutely uninterested, entranced by a particularly creative spur of execration on the screen.

“Should I be missing him?” Waverly wonders aloud a moment later.

“Hm?”

“Should I be missing him?” she repeats, not very interested in concrete advice from Wynonna, but curious about what she’d say.

“I guess? I dunno,” she sips on her wine, “Gus probably cries about missing Curtis like, once a week, and the guy’s been dead for almost a year”.

Waverly often marvels at Wynonna’s complete lack of social cohesion and empathy. She grabs the wine glass from her hands and downs it in one swift move.

“Curtis was like, double the man Champ could ever be, though,” Wynonna continues, a rare moment of clarity making it’s way through.

Waverly prays to God the wine will make her brave enough to ask what she wants to ask.

Wynonna complains about the empty glass, of course, so she gets up for a glass of her own, refilling Wynonna’s. It takes her almost an entire episode for her to finally open her mouth again.

“Do you think he should… Touch me?” she asks, her cheeks already so red she can feel the heat radiate from them.

Wynonna very elegantly chokes on her wine.

“What the fuck? Dude, stop being gross, you’re like, twelve”.

“You do know that you’re five years older than me, right?” Waverly rolls her eyes, “If you’re an _unemployed_ twenty-five year old, it means I’m a twenty year old who’s going to college”.

“First of all: stop doing fucking math,” Wynonna huffs, “second of all: I am aware that I am unemployed and that you’re way better than me at everything. I think I’d rather talk about the other thing, now, thanks”.

“I don’t know what to think of it!” Waverly starts, the wine sitting slowly on her stomach and her skin warm with it’s effects. “Did you know he’s never, like, touched me?”

“Waverly, baby girl, light of my life,” Wynonna closes her eyes, fingers pressed to her temples as if she’s going through the hardest thing she’s ever had to endure, “I do not want to hear about your virginity and Champ the Tramp’s wiener”.

“I’m not a virgin!” Waverly lets out, louder than she intended.

Wynonna’s brain short-circuits, then, and she makes a face so unlike herself Waverly almost laughs. The older Earp stares at the ceiling, eyes wide, mouth agape, thinking.

“What?” she asks, finally. It lives.

“He just… Like… You _know”._

Is it possible to die from sheer embarrassment? Waverly hopes so.

“Oh Almighty Father _please_ stop my baby sister from talking about anal sex,” Wynonna pleads, hand raised up into the heavens. Waverly slaps them down.

“I’m _serious,_ Wy!” she screeches. “Sometimes he makes me feel like he doesn’t _actually_ like me, you know? Not as I am”.

Wynonna looks at Waverly, a gaze as familiar as it is infrequent. There’s no pity in her eyes, but a tinge of sadness. She knows she will never understand, but she tries.

“You shouldn’t be with someone who loves you despite yourself, Waves,” sighs Wynonna, a small smile playing on her lips. “You deserve someone who loves you because of who you are”.

***

Waverly wonders if there is someone who could love her for who she is in a town as small as Purgatory.

When Wynonna tells her she is leaving for a while, a half-baked excuse about soul searching and job-hunting which is all too familiar by now, Waverly wonders if who she is could be enough for someone to stay.

Wynonna was never very good at keeping her word.

***

Waverly likes working at Shorty’s.

When she started working there, just a few hours here and there to help Gus pay for her hormone therapy after Curtis died, she was shocked by how nice it felt.

She smiled, she waved, she threw around a few nice comments and asked about people’s families and pets, and it was as if she suddenly became one of the most beloved people in Purgatory.

The alcohol definitely had something to do with it, she knew, but it was nice to be appreciated.

She’d never admit it, too many books and essays on trans-centered feminism read to enable her to do so, but the inappropriate comments over the bar and the tips handed to her with a slightly derogatory compliment on her appearance made her feel better about herself.

Waverly liked to feel appreciated.

Waverly liked attention, no matter how small it was.

21 years of being thrown under a dead sister’s shadow, ignored due to your last name and despised due to your genitals could do that to you.

***

The first time Waverly sees her, she’s too angry to pay her any mind.

Wynonna came back to Purgatory only three days ago (out of money, although she’d never admit it) and was already in jail. Again.

Waverly receives a call from Nedley at seven in the morning, asking her to _please_ come pick her sister up, her singing is too terrible to endure on a Monday.

She tells Gus she’s going to pick Waverly up at John Henry’s house, although him and Wynonna haven’t talked since last year. Gus probably doesn’t believe it, but ignorance is truly a blessing, so she doesn’t question Waverly’s rush to get into her red Jeep.

As Waverly signs the pile of paperwork required to release Wynonna (it’s the last time Nedley’s letting her go with only a warning, he tells Waverly for the fourth time), she feels eyes on her. She wonders if maybe her hair is too messy, or if she has too little make up on. Is it the big coat?

Once she gathers enough courage, she looks up, directly into the brown eyes of a red-headed Deputy sitting down at her desk a few feet away from where Waverly stands. Waverly instantly knows she’s new in town. She’d know about a redhead, specially one as… particular as the woman who stares right back at her.

Wynonna’s tragic rendition of Prince’s ‘Purple Rain’ reminds Waverly she is utterly pissed, and she breaks eye contact.

***

“If I ever have to pick you up at the police station again, I’ll make you wish you were still in jail,” says Waverly, 5 feet and 4 inches of pure, unadulterated rage.

Wynonna laughs, evidently still drunk.

***

The second time Waverly sees her, she very quickly learns Officer Haught (the name stares back at Waverly from the business card, defiant) is most definitely into women. To Waverly’s eternal delight and intensifying internal turmoil, the police officer seems to be into one specific woman.

Waverly also learns she _really_ should get those beer taps fixed, she _really_ should not blabber as much as she does, and she _really_ needs to get home so she can untuck.

She feels herself pounding painfully thorough the rest of the day, Stetsons and dimples and red hair floating around on her mind.

***

It is one thing to be an Earp, Purgatory’s most despised family.

It is another thing to be a trans woman in a small town.

It is a whole new, entirely unpleasant thing, to be a transgender Earp in Purgatory, a town as small as it is proud of it’s own regressions.

As Waverly lies down on Champ’s bed, still feeling herself throb as he lightly snores next to her, arms draped possessively over her stomach, she thinks about how terribly inconvenient it’d be to be not only an Earp, not only transgender, but also a woman who’s interested in other women.

God shouldn’t pick favorites, but if he did, Waverly Earp most certainly would not be in his top 10.

***

“Did you see how hot Doc’s new girlfriend is?” asks Chrissy, languidly resting atop the bar’s counter as Waverly cleans the whiskey glasses for the third time. Despite the cold, Waverly wears her uniform shirt tied around her midriff, stomach bare. Chrissy asks if she isn’t cold.

Waverly wants to tell her she really can’t afford to feel cold. She hates wearing heavy clothes. She does not like giving anyone any reasons to question her identity.

“I don’t think so,” replies Waverly, finally sitting down next to her friend. She places two glasses of wine in front of them. It’s Friday, after all.

“She’s like, super hot,” says Chrissy, unbothered by her own words. Waverly feels surprise settle on her chest like a nice, warm blanket.

“Is she, now?”

“Sorry to Wynonna. She’s hot, too. But Rosita is _super_ hot,” gushes Chrissy, clearly invested in getting Waverly to think John Henry’s new girlfriend could be a model.

She wonders what she, a heterosexual woman, should say to that.

“Getting a crush now, are we?” teases Waverly, straight as an arrow.

Chrissy laughs, then sips on her wine, as if deep in thought.

“You know, I really wouldn’t mind spending some one-on-on time with her,” she replies, smirking, with as much fanfare as one would use to talk about making scrambled eggs.

Waverly feels an unknown pressure moving inside her ribcage, but dares not to question why.

***

While she reads in Latin, Waverly doesn’t like to listen to any music. While she reads in ancient Summerian, she enjoys listening to Tchaikovsky.

She listens to Tchaikovsky as she slowly skims a digitalized text her professor sent her, upon request, which discusses the ways in which women participated in a specific city’s cultural festivities.

A coffee cup is placed in front of her, which she readily ignores.

After a few minutes, blue nail polish and a multitude of rings make their way into Waverly’s line of sight, and she contains a shriek as she raises from her chair and all but squeezes Robert’s life out of him.

He laughs, and Stephen settles next to him.

“Hey, princess,” smiles Robert, waiting for Waverly to sit back down before pushing the disposable cup of coffee in front of her. She looks up at Stephen.

“It’s late,” he shrugs, looking around. They’re the only people inside Purgatory’s only library. “I won’t tell anyone”.

Waverly gladly sips on her coffee, familiarity settling in as she discusses what she’s been studying with the couple in front of her, who seem to absorb every word she says.

“What are you doing here, anyways?” she asks Robert, slowly running her cold hands against the hot cup.

“Came to pick my fiancée up,” he grins, and Waverly does not contain her shriek this time.

Stephen laughs, showing her his engagement ring, as she hugs them both, happy tears flooding her eyes.

Waverly does not always notice it, but it is only around people like herself that she feels a sense of belonging so strong.

As Stephen and Robert tell her about the proposal and their plans for the wedding (Waverly is their maid of honor, of course, says Stephen, and she cries even more), she feels something settling inside herself, resting. Her heart, the wild animal which is so frequently fighting a pointless, losing battle against her own ribs, it’s cage, seems to calm down, laying on a clearing and soaking in the sunshine.

She’s allowed to just be, and for that she is eternally grateful.

***

Waverly likes to think she knows how to take care of herself.

When she was 11 years old, a boy in her class made fun of Wynonna for always getting herself in trouble. He told Waverly her older sister was crazy, and would end up in prison.

Waverly didn’t think much before punching him square in the face, and his nose bled so much he had to go home for the day.

Waverly is not always right about everything.

***

The third time she sees her, she wishes she didn’t.

It’s a calm night at Shorty’s, and Waverly is glad. She has a lot of reading to do, and her eyes burn every time she blinks.

Officer Haught steps in with a man Waverly recognizes. Lonnie, was it?

They sit down on a booth, both still in uniform, and ask for a couple of beers and burgers. Not that Waverly is paying attention from her place at the bar. Not at all.

She’s a little distracted, really. Her mind replays the same few sentences from the last text she’s read, still trying to understand them, and her back aches. Brown eyes and red hair force their way into her mind with frustrating insistence, and she forgets who Damkianna is. Mother of the Gods?

No, that’s Mammi.

Damned Summerian. Damn it all to hell, Waverly thinks.

A man sits down in front of her, eyes quite evidently focused on her cleavage. She contains her own frown.

“Could you get me a beer, sweetheart?” he asks. Waverly thinks he’s probably old enough to be her dad.

Beer is served. Cleavage is looked at. She spots another customer, a few feet down the counter. Her body starts moving before she can even process it, the need to put as much distance between her and this strange man almost unbearable.

She only notices who it is when she gets there.

“Good evening, Waverly Earp,” grins one Officer Haught, all white teeth and dimples.

“Oh,” Waverly intelligently replies, startled. “Uh. Hey”.

Officer Haught chuckles.

“That guy seemed a little… creepy,” the officer explains, quickly gesturing towards the middle-aged man, who’s still very much staring at Waverly.

“He was staring at my boobs,” replies a dumbfounded Waverly, top of her class thorough High School and on her way to an almost guaranteed spot on a Master’s degree program.

Officer Haught grimaces with understanding, elbow resting on the counter as she takes off her Stetson.

Waverly likes the way the fluorescent lights reflect on her copper strands.

“Officer Haught-“

“Nicole. Please”.

“Nic-Nicole. Isn’t drinking on uniform against your code?” asks Waverly, suddenly emboldened by the small gesture of trust. She likes the name. It suits her.

Nicole smiles widely back. A blush starts creeping it’s way up Waverly’s cheeks.

“You’re one to talk about uniforms, miss Earp,” she grins, gesturing towards Waverly’s bare stomach. Her cheeks feel impossibly hot.

She tries to think of something to say, but fails miserably, spluttering loose words.

Nicole laughs, a sound so sweet and entrancing Waverly decides it’s okay to make a fool of herself if that is her reward.

“You’re right, though. It’s just been a long day,” she sighs, finally. “We’re off duty, though”.

“I’m sorry to hear that. Here, too,” Waverly replies, forgetting she is very much not off duty.

“Oi! Pretty lady! Another, will ya?” yells the unsettling man by the corner, waving around his empty cup. Waverly smiles to cover her annoyance.

She feels an annoyed huff from where Nicole stands, but doesn’t look back as she fills another cup.

As she moves away from him, excited to keep talking to Nicole, she feels a sudden grab on her wrist.

“Shouldn’t you pay attention to all your customers, pretty girl?” the man asks, leering at her with a smile so cold she feels her heart start to thump against her chest.

“I’m just… Talking to my friend,” she tries, swiftly attempting to loosen his grip on her.

“Ah,” he lets out, as if realizing something, “queers with queers, uh?” he asks, still holding her wrist tightly.

“Excuse me?” Waverly replies, despair quickly settling in the pit of her stomach. What the hell does he _want?_

“I thought it was just a gays-on-gays thing,” he starts, and Waverly feels bile rising up on her throat, “guess dykes and trannys get along, too”.

Sometimes, anger and humiliation can serve as fuel. They make good soldiers, great fighters.

Waverly is too tired, too shocked to fight. She stands there, the man’s grip still strong on her wrist as she tries to process the word he’s just thrown at her. It’s been a while, she thinks, uselessly. Quite a few years since someone last called her that.

The grip loosens, and she hears a click.

Waverly blinks once, twice, and the man is being very unkindly dragged away from the bar, handcuffed, by Officer Nicole Haught, who seems to be whispering something to him as they go. Waverly does not move.

***

It is not a secret, she knows. Being transgender is never really a secret.

But it’s nice, when someone doesn’t know it yet. Waverly likes the rarity of it, of being treated as a normal human being.

She tries to remember the last time someone met her without knowing who she was, and comes up empty.

She grieves the loss of a potential… _something,_ as she watches the front door of the bar close behind Nicole’s back. She remembers the officer gave her her number.

She wonders if she will ever get to use it, now.

***

Nicole doesn’t return, and Lonnie leaves a few minutes afterwards, phone pressed against his ear.

Waverly stares at the door as if at any moment the woman would walk back in, sit down and continue their conversation as if she had never heard what the man called Waverly. They’d talk, laugh, and maybe by the end of the day Waverly would call Robert Svane and tell her she’s made a new friend. He’d tell her it was nice that she was meeting new people, different people, people like them.

But Nicole Haught does not come back, and Waverly finishes off her shift with the weight of that word like a cattle marking on her skin, burning still. She doesn’t call Robert, and tells Gus she isn’t feeling like having anything for dinner. Her stomach aches, she says.

God shouldn’t pick favorites, but if he did, Waverly Earp most certainly would not be in his top 50.


	3. Chapter 3

Waverly sits on the front porch, Virginia Woolf’s ‘Orlando’ resting on her lap. She stares straight ahead, noticing the frost starting to settle over the foliage of Gus’ garden. It’s cold, a little too cold for this time of the year, but the weather matches her mood, and makes for a good excuse for how little she gets out of the house.

Champ’s still out of town, and although he sends her daily good morning texts and selfies with whatever “cool” thing he finds around the winter resort (today’s picture included a stuffed bear, and Waverly told him for the 7th time she was vegan). She tries hard not to admit it, but the time away from him is nice.

Waverly inhales deeply, arms extended over her head. His absence allows her lungs to fill entirely, for her to take up more space.

***

Waverly and Gus eat quietly, exchanging a few words about college and Shorty’s and Wynonna’s erratic behavior.

The second Waverly brings a forkful of food to her mouth, the front door is slammed so hard the sound echoes around the entire house. She chokes, coughing so fiercely her eyes to water, Gus up in a second and slapping her back.

When she finally stops coughing, someone smacks her in the face with a rolled up stack of papers.

“Wynonna what the-“ screams an exasperated Gus.

“Jesus Christ-“ spits Waverly, tearful still.

“Guess who just got herself a job?!” yells Wynonna, entirely unaware she could’ve just murdered her sister.

Waverly’s brain is too confused with the last two minutes to understand her words.

“What?” asks Gus, eyebrows still furrowed.

“This bitch!” Wynonna points at herself.

“You got a job?” Gus asks again.

Waverly looks at the stack of papers she was just assaulted with, Purgatory’s Sheriff Department’s logo staring back at her.

“What’s this?” she asks, mind instantly flooded with red hair and bright smiles.

“This bitch,” repeats Wynonna, excitement so glaring it’s oblivious, “got a real, nice, proper job at the cop shop!”

Gus laughs.

Waverly huffs.

“I’m serious!” sighs Wynonna, rolling her eyes.

“Nedley hates you,” reminds Waverly.

“Keep your friends close,” Wynonna winks at her, “and your enemies closer, baby girl”.

The nickname warms Waverly’s insides.

“Will you sit your god damn ass down and explain already, young lady?” Gus sighs, eyes rolling in exasperation.

***

Against all odds, Wynonna really is working for the Sheriff’s Department. Nedley invited her, she tells them, most definitely tired of having to deal with a bored and jobless Wynonna, which meant she was often drunk and often looking for trouble.

Waverly remembers the year she somehow decided it would be a good idea to start selling acid, which Waverly quickly discovered after being gifted one too many shoes. Fortunately, the math and the organization this type of criminal activity required got Wynonna to rethink her entrepreneurship.

The actual job absolutely does not sound like a real job which already existed, but Waverly has to admit it was a smart move from Nedley. Wynonna would have to do some paperwork, assist with investigations and work as a consultant. She’d be kept close to him, and most probably feel a little less inclined to break pool tables by throwing grown men over them.

***

“I’m really proud of you,” breathes Waverly, staring up at the ceiling and watching as headlights cast moving shadows on it.

“Good,” replies Wynonna, “you finally know how I feel every time I look at you”.

Waverly smiles in the dark, a smile for no one but herself.

***

The downside of Wynonna’s new job is that on her first week, Gus asks Waverly to bring some coffee and donuts for Wynonna and the officers. It’d keep Wynonna tranquil and serve as a thank you to the officers for putting up with her, Gus explains.

***

Everyone thanks her profusely, whining about how bad the coffee at the Station is. Wynonna shows Waverly around, explaining what she does and a little too excitedly discussing the prospects of having a gun. Nedley rolls his eyes and pointedly tells Waverly not to worry, he won’t let her get her hands on any firearms. She thanks him.

A flurry of red hair catches Waverly’s eyes, and she tells Wynonna she has to go.

***

“You never called,” hums Nicole Haught. She stands in the parking lot, right by the door, and Waverly has a feeling this was a trap.

Nicole stomps on something, smoke leaving her nostrils.

“Oh. Hi,” Waverly replies with a start. She frowns, “were you smoking?”

“Nerves,” she shrugs in response. “You’ve been avoiding me”.

“Listen-“

“Just. Let me explain, please,” sighs Nicole. “I’m just going on a break. Can we talk for a second?”

Waverly considers it, staring down at her shoes.

“Okay”.

They stop by the sidewalk of the parking lot, and Nicole takes off her jacket and places it on the ground.

“What are you doing?” asks Waverly, brow furrowed.

“So you don’t get any dirt on you jeans,” Nicole replies, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

“What? There’s no need –“.

“Waves. Just sit down,” says Nicole, her lips twitching up.

Waverly’s entire body tingles at the nickname. She sits down over the jacket, blushing.

Nicole sits beside her, grunting about how no dirt in the planet could make her uniform any worse.

“I’m really sorry about that asshole,” Nicole sighs, “he got me wishin’ I wasn’t in uniform so I could kick his ass”.

Waverly’s brain instantly plays out a very vivid image of Nicole kicking someone’s ass, and the hair’s on the back of her neck stand on end.

“It’s not like it’s your fault”.

“I know. It’s just… You shouldn’t have to deal with that”.

Waverly chuckles.

“I’ve dealt with worse”.

Nicole frowns.

“I’m sorry”.

A strange, uncomfortable silence falls between them, and Waverly finds herself wondering if the connection she’s felt with the woman sitting beside her was just her imagination.

“I didn’t… I was hoping you wouldn’t find out,” she says, eyes on the ground.

“What? Find out about what?”

Nicole’s confusion seems genuine, and Waverly frowns.

“About me being trans and all”.

“Oh,” says Nicole, and Waverly briefly panics. Hadn’t she heard what he’d say? Did she just unintentionally out herself? “I’m sorry he took that away from you. The telling me, I mean. It should’ve been your choice”.

Waverly sighs, eyes following a small ant which circles around a small piece of gum on the floor.

“But I already knew it, though”.

Waverly’s eyes widen, and she turns to stare at Nicole.

“What?”

“Hm. I mean, people talk? It’s a small town. I just got here and people are already going on about the new dyke,” says Nicole, laughing.

“You… knew?” Waverly questions, confusion clear on her face. “Even when you… When you came into the bar? To give me your number?”

“Yup” nods Nicole.

“Why did you-“

“If you’re about to ask me why I flirted with you…” deadpans Nicole, still smiling.

The ant moves away from the gum, deciding on a piece of grass instead. It walks purposefully towards some destiny unseen.

“Why wouldn’t I give my number to the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen?” says Nicole, looking directly into Waverly’s eyes. She smirks a cocky smirk, one Waverly hadn’t stopped thinking about since the day she’d walked into Shorty’s.

Waverly’s been called pretty before. It’s not rare, to be honest, but it usually comes accompanied by a look of surprise, by an unfortunate question, or by leering. This is a nice change.

“I like you, Waverly Earp,” Nicole breaks the silence, rising. “I hope you call”.

“What did you do to him?” asks Waverly, returning the jacket.

“Who?”

“The creep”.

“Oh. Had a nice chat,” replies Nicole, a smile too wide for Waverly to believe it. “I don’t like using my position and all but…” she shrugs.

 _It’s you,_ Nicole Haught wants to say.

***

“Since when are you buddies with Haught-Sauce?” asks Wynonna, mouth full of chips.

“You mean Officer Haught?” asks Waverly, book in hand.

Wynonna’s response is a noncommittal shrug.

“She shows up at Shorty’s sometimes”.

Wynonna mulls something over and Waverly returns to her book.

“Don’t tell her I’ve said it but she’s… She’s nice”.

“Yeah. She is”.

***

“Officer Haught! Late lunch?” asks Waverly, a strange feeling setting deep in her belly at the sight of the redhead.

“Nicole, please,” she smiles, “and just a coffee, thanks”.

Nicole sits down right in front of Waverly, her Stetson placed atop the counter.

“Are you on a break?” Waverly moves to the coffee maker, feeling her hands shaking. She wonders why she feels so nervous.

“Just finished a double shift, actually. It’s been… interesting having your sister around”.

“I bet it has,” Waverly laughs. She makes coffee for them both.

“It’s funny, I hadn’t actually realized you were related before you came to the Station,” Nicole takes her mug with a dimpled smile. “You’re so different”.

Waverly hums.

“We are”.

“She talks a lot about you, you know. It’s kinda sweet, actually”.

Waverly looks up in surprise.

“Really?”

“I may have… asked a couple of times,” Nicole chuckles, “but yeah. Must be nice having a family so close”.

“You don’t?”

Nicole looks down, her light demeanor clouded. Waverly instantly regrets her question.

“Not really. Queer cop is as far as it gets from what they wanted for me”.

Waverly’s surprised to see her talking about herself so openly. She takes another sip. Silence swirls around them like mist, comfortable and calming.

“Why did you come here?”

Nicole looks at Waverly with a strange expression, lips curved in a small smile. She shrugs.

“Thought I’d check up on you”.

Waverly thinks about the few texts she’s sent Nicole, mostly asking her about Wynonna.

“Why are you being so nice to me?”

“Nice because I dropped by for a coffee?”

“Nice because of everything”.

Nicole rests her chin on her hands, a confused look on her face.

“Is this because of your boyfriend?”

Waverly blushes, guilt setting in her gut. She hadn’t even thought of him since Nicole arrived.

“No. I mean, maybe?” she shrugs, “I don’t know, I’m just not used to…”

“Having friends?” smiles Nicole.

Waverly wonders what she’s done to have someone so sweet this interested in her.

“Friends, uh?”

Nicole Haught shrugs, smirking.

“I’ll take what I can get”.

Waverly laughs.

***

“Babe?”

“Yeah?”

“I missed you”.

Waverly rests her head on Champ’s chest, cringing at the feeling of his sweat dampening her hair. He drapes his arms around her, expansive as always.

She feels enclosed in some sort of vacuum, slowly drifting away.

Waverly cannot bring herself to respond.

***

There’s wine, vegan pasta and a warmth so humane it’s delightful waiting for Waverly Earp when she arrives at Robert’s flat. These nights are always a source of great joy for her, the few inbetween moments when she gets to talk about whatever the hell she wants with someone who seems to pay attention to her. She listens to Robert as he speaks about his job and his fiancée with such love and care she feels it radiate from him.

She hopes she’ll feel it, someday.

“What’s on your mind, princess?” her old teacher asks suddenly, pouring her more wine.

“What?”

“You’ve got something going on in that pretty head of yours”.

“No I don’t” she furrows her brows, thinking.

“Hmhm,” he smirks, “alright then”.

It takes Waverly 6 more minutes before she blurts out a “I don’t think I love Champ”.

Robert looks utterly unsurprised. His rings clink against the glass as he twirls his wine around.

“I don’t think you do, either”.

Waverly sighs.

“We’ve been together for so long.”

“So?” Robert asks, legs crossed, “you’re 21, kid. You’re just starting to figure out what you want”.

“But he’s… He’s nice to me. When no one else was, too”.

She thinks of the times people would call Waverly names in high school and Champ’d tell her to laugh it off, they were only messing around.

“Princess,” Robert leans forward, suddenly solemn, “this is the very least you should expect from _anyone_. You’re the best this hellhole of a town has to offer. You shouldn’t settle for nice”.

What’s better than nice?

The only thing Waverly can think of is Nicole Haught going against her morals to scare off some drunk who called her a slur.

***

“Champ,” tries Waverly, feelings her breasts scraping against cheap blankets as he thrusts into her with such force it borders on despair.

He doesn’t seem to hear her.

“Champ!”

He stops, a hands resting on the small of Waverly’s back with worry.

“What is it?” he asks, out of breath.

“You’re hurting me”.

He pulls out with a grunt, and Waverly can’t contain the whine from leaving her lips. Champ throws himself on the bed, but Waverly doesn’t try to move, her feet still planted on the dirty carpet of the motel, too bothered by the sting to think about how exposed she is in this position.

They’d went out for dinner (it was their anniversary, but she wasn’t sure Champ remembered), and he’d brought her to the motel just outside of town in what she’s sure he thought of as a sweet gesture.

He hadn’t bothered to bring them any lube, claiming the condoms were enough.

Waverly knew it wasn’t enough, but bent over for him anyways.

“Sorry, babe”.

Waverly hums in response, slowly laying down on the bed, curling up. She sees him gesturing for her to come over, but pretends not to notice. His shaft, hard and glistening, feels like a reminder of her inadequacy.

“Do you want anything?”

“What?”

“Do you need anything?” Champ asks, unsure.

“No. I’m fine”.

Waverly isn’t sure what he meant by the question, but his discomfort makes it clear he wouldn’t like a positive answer.

***

The loud siren of a police car startles Waverly, and she drops her hardcover edition of Weber’s “Gesammelte Aufsate zur Religionssoziologie”, which manages to slip down the front porch and unto the bushes underneath it.

Wynonna comes out of the police car, laughing histerically.

“Your face, dude!” she laughs even more, bending over and resting her hands on her knees.

“I’m sorry!” apologizes a flustered Nicole Haught, getting out of the driver’s side of the car. “I told her not to do it!”

Waverly wants to murder Wynonna for embarrassing her in front of her new friend.

“Don’t you have to be stupid somewhere else, Wynonna?”

Her sister doesn’t stop laughing, the sound echoing as she enters their house.

“Sorry,” Nicole apologizes again, pulling up her trousers and bending down.

“What are you doing?” asks Waverly, walking down the front steps.

“The book”.

“I can get it”.

Nicole’s response comes in the form of a quiet “ah!” as she crouches in front of the bushes, sticking her arms inside it and fishing for something.

“There we go!” she smiles, handing Waverly her book. She stares at the cover before letting go. “German?”

“Yeah. Translated Weber is always worse than the original,” Waverly replies absentmindedly. She often forgets most people don’t care about these sort of things.

“I knew you were smart but wow,” grins Nicole, eyes squinting under the afternoon sun reflected on the fresh snow.

“Stop it!” Waverly blushes. Nicole’s smile widens. “I thought you’d arrested my sister,” Waverly changes the subject, feeling her own heart beating uncomfortably fast.

Nicole laughs.

“That’d be priceless,” she follows Waverly up the stairs of the porch, “but I was just giving her a ride. She didn’t have any snow tires”.

“She didn’t even thank you!” Waverly sighs, exasperated, “sorry about her. Would you like some coffee?”

Nicole considers it, and Waverly admires how the sun reflects on her copper strands. What is she so beautiful for?, Waverly asks God. He does not reply, but if he did, Waverly thinks it’d come as a laugh to her face.

“If you don’t mind? I can’t stay long, though. Have to go back on patrol”.

“Yeah, right. Patrol. You’re a cop”.

Waverly’s brain registers for what it feels like the hundredth and also first time that the tall woman standing before her is a police officer, who uses guns and arrests people and wears uniforms Waverly most definitely does not think are ridiculously sexy. Not at all.

Nicole looks at her with a small smile, eyes squinted in confusion.

“Come in!” Waverly blurts out.

Nicole is a woman with lots of virtues. One of her biggest ones is ignoring Waverly’s idiotic behavior, or so Waverly thinks.

As Nicole asks her about German, and the book, and gushes about how impressive Waverly is, eyes attentive on each and everything that leaves her mouth as if the smaller woman’s opinion on Weber’s stance on bureaucracy was the single most incredible thing she’d ever heard, Waverly decides she might be a little more fucked than the initial prediction.

She thinks about the weather channel’s inaccuracy. Nicole Haught might mean a stormy few months for her, but her smile is so warm Waverly thinks she might be able to handle it.

***

When Waverly was younger, she’d often think about what sex would be like.

More than wonder what it’d be like, she’d try to convince herself it wouldn’t be impossible to find someone willing to be with someone like her.

When she started taking hormones, she felt a little better. Her body had nice curves, and she quite sincerely thought of herself as quite attractive. She liked to look at her own breasts, which Wynonna loved to make fun of, and the simple act of shaving her legs became an almost religious weekly ritual, which always helped her deal with her own dysphoria.

Wynonna and Gus often remarked that it was funny, really, how much love Waverly had for the things most women despised nowadays, like shaving, putting on make up everyday, plucking their eyebrows.

They didn’t know, of course, that when Waverly was 8 she’d sit on the bathroom floor as she watched Willa, her oldest sister, shave her legs and pluck her eyebrows, wishing with painful fervor that she could do the same without being, at the very least, chastised by her father.

But all of those rituals, those curves, the attention she put on herself felt like mere provisional measures, distractions which helped her avert her eyes from the strangeness between her legs.

Waverly still remembers searching for porn with transgender women (and all the incredibly offensive terms utilized to refer to them, to her) when she was a teenager, trying to figure out how to make herself work for others.

The last time she’d watched anything with women like her in them, she was 16. She realized it made her feel worse, watching herself being seen as an object, as a fetish, as anything but a woman.

She was absurdly glad with the downturn her libido took when she started HRT. It was easier to ignore herself when she was soft, tucked and hidden.

***

“If you could,” Waverly starts, slowly wiping the counter at Shorty’s as Champ spins around on his stool with childish glee. “Would you change me?”

“Whaddaya mean?” he asks, stopping the spinning by placing his large hands on the counter.

“If you could, would like it better if I was born a woman?”

Champ doesn’t seem to think before answering.

“Of course,” he answers, straightforward and tactless.

Waverly wipes a little too hard, pushing a glass off the counter. It shatters loudly, the harsh sound echoing around the empty bar.

“Are you serious?”

“What the hell, babe?” asks Champ, leaning over to stare at the broken shards.

Waverly slams down her palm on the counter. She thinks about Wynonna, telling her she should be with someone who loves her for who she is. She thinks of Bobo, telling her not to settle with nice.

“Are you serious?”

“Well yeah, I mean, wouldn’t you be happier with it, too?”

“I can’t believe you”.

“What did I-“.

Waverly feels her ribs enclosing her heart with a tight grip. Her lungs don’t seem to be able to expand anymore.

“How daft _are_ you, Champ?”

“What the hell are you going on about?” he asks, clearly angry.

“Did you seriously just put on a straight face to tell your _girlfriend_ you wish she was someone different?”

“I just answered your question! And I’m thinking about you! You’d be happier, too!”

“Oh don’t give me this bullshit! You’re the one who’d be happy to have a different hole to shove your dick in!”

He looks genuinely baffled with her words, mouth opening and closing without making any sound.

“What’s gotten into you, Waverly? You’re exaggerating it! I just answered your-“.

“Well tell me, then. If I told you, right now, that I’m happy the way I am, would you say you’re happy, too?” she puts her hands on her hips, “you really don’t mind that your _girlfriend_ has a dick just like you?”

The word feels dirty and bitter on her tongue, but desperate times call for desperate measures. She wonders what Wynonna would say if she told her she’d never come while having sex with Champ. Something about punching him in the dick, probably.

Champ, Waverly learned early on their relationship, hates conflict. He avoids it like the plague, often saying things he does not mean or leaving before any disagreement arises. Waverly used to find it a little charming, too accustomed with her father’s yelling to not feel the bile rise in her throat every time someone raised their voice at her.

This time, as Champ simply stares at her before getting up and walking out of the bar, Waverly thinks she’d rather hear his screams.

***

“I had a fight with Champ today,” she says quietly as Gus serves them breakfast the next day.

Silence.

“He said he wished I was born a woman”.

“What?!” Wynonna slams her hands down on the table, her own coffee mug shaking precariously.

“That damn fool…” Gus adds, smart as always.

“I asked, though. If he wanted it”.

“I’m going to kick his ass so hard my boot’s gonna come out of his fucking mouth,” says Wynonna, a terrifying expression on her face.

“What’s this about, honey?” asks Gus, looking Waverly in the eye.

Waverly tries to come up with a straight answer.

“I don’t know, I just… He gives me that feeling sometimes. That he doesn’t actually like me as I am”.

“Finally catching up, huh?” asks Wynonna, earning herself a smack on the back of the head by a frankly scary Gus.

“What do you mean?”

“Love… The boy isn’t too bad, but we all know he is no good for you,” says Gus, slowly. Probing.

Waverly has a feeling they’ve talked about this before, just the two of them.

“He’s sweet,” Waverly says, mostly to herself.

“Sometimes,” Gus replies, a small smile on her lips.

“What if I can’t… find anyone?”

“Baby girl,” Wynonna starts, less terrifying now, “you’re the best of us. Anyone would be lucky to have you in their lives”.

Gus hums in agreement, sipping on her coffee.

“Would you?” Waverly asks. The women stare at her, confused. “Do you wish I was born a girl?”

Wynonna thinks it over before answering with a smile.

“You were, baby girl,” her sister’s eyes are so soft, so caring, Waverly feels like crying. “Besides, anything different would mean you wouldn’t be the amazing little badass you are right now”.

Waverly feels tears sliding down her cheeks.

“I wish you didn’t have to suffer so much,” Gus adds, “but I wouldn’t dare change a single thing about you, my darling”.

Sometimes Waverly forgets that Wynonna used to go out with her whenever they went shopping just to help her pick outfits and glare at anyone who looked at them funny because a boy was in the girl’s isle.

Sometimes she forgets Gus taught her how to put on her lipstick properly and almost got into a fistfight with her school principal when they first filed in for a change in her name and gender on the school paperwork.

Sometimes she forgets that love, in it’s purest form, is easy and warm, it is peanut butter on the roof of her mouth, it is tea with just the smallest bit of honey, it is butterflies and vanilla and easy conversation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys for the support and specially for the comments. It's always nice to know how this is being perceived.
> 
> This little guy has been weirdly fun to write! Honestly started to consider getting a little more into ao3 and posting some new fanfics. Also, I apologize for any grammar mistakes, I get a little too excited about posting and tend to overlook a couple of things.


	4. Chapter 4

_Apophenia: the human tendency to perceive a connection or meaningful pattern between unrelated or random things._

_***_

Waverly hasn’t talked to Champ for a week.

She feels light, and blames it on the fact that her college courses are on a break.

(Everyone who knows Waverly knows that studying was never an obligation).

***

“You need snow tires,” says Nicole Haught, climbing out of her police car with Wynonna in tow.

“I prefer having little red riding hood driving me around,” replies Wynonna, kissing Waverly on the top of her head as she shakes off the snow on her boots.

Nicole only rolls her eyes, hesitating before following the sisters inside the house. Waverly smiles at her.

“Waverly’s boy-man used to change them for us,” says Wynonna, throwing herself on the couch. “Do we have any wine, Waves? Haught-sauce isn’t on duty”.

Waverly swiftly leaves the living room to go find some wine and glasses for them, gladly escaping from the conversation. She hears the officer’s questioning “used to?” and smirks at the hopefulness in her tone.

“Don’t get too excited, stud. Rough patch,” Wynonna answers as Waverly returns, handing each of them a wine glass.

Nicole thanks her, smiling wide enough to reveal her dimples. Waverly blushes.

Wynonna clicks her tongue, grabby hands reaching for the bottle.

“Ah,” Nicole nods, “sorry to hear that, Waverly”.

She doesn’t look too sorry, and Wynonna’s chuckle only reinforces Waverly’s impression.

“Off early today?” Waverly desperately changes the subject.

“You could say so”.

Wynonna huffs.

“This idiot’s been working non-stop for like, two days”.

“What? Why?”

Nicole shrugs.

The dynamic between Wynonna and Nicole is a strange mixture of mildly offensive comments and odd compliments that do not sound like compliments. Waverly finds herself strangely entertained by the two. Wynonna never really liked Champ, she thinks suddenly.

Apophenia.

***

Waverly has always loved baking. It was the one thing no one minded her doing when she was younger, not even her father, who seemed to deem the awkwardness of having a son who knew how to bake bearable when the outcome was delicious red velvet cakes and nice, gooey chocolate chip cookies.

Never one to half-ass anything, she’d quickly learned her way around the kitchen, which became almost a sanctuary for her. It was nice, she thought, doing something with your hands that was bound to please everyone around you. It gave her time to think, meditate with no one around to interrupt. They knew better than mess with her baking.

Waverly’d woken up with the foreign, almost forgotten feeling of an erection after dreaming of handcuffs and police uniforms and red hair.

Which was why, at 8 in the morning on a Sunday, Waverly was absentmindedly beating a vegan red velvet mixture, wishing the feeling would just go away.

The red of the batter reminds her of Nicole, and the hairs on her arms stand on end.

“Why didn’t I choose _chocolate?_ ” she asks herself.

***

Someone knocks on the front door, and Waverly briefly considers ignoring the sound as she keeps up the mixing, arms aching with the sheer force she’s using. The knock comes again.

She sighs, placing the bowl on the counter before slowly, sleepily walking up to the door. She opens it with a yawn.

“Hey!” smiles Nicole Haught.

Waverly closes the door, eyes wide. She wonders if she’s still dreaming, maybe, or if she’s just this unlucky. Looking down, she notices her own pajama pants, her Purgatory High t-shirt covered in flour. She sighs, her fate unfortunately already decided by an unsmiling God.

“Sorry,” she starts, opening the door again. Nicole looks confused, hair still wet and smelling of vanilla and coconut, hands full with a cardboard tray with 4 cups of coffee. “I’m still… sleeping. I think”.

Nicole laughs, quiet and sweet. Waverly gestures for her to come in.

“Did I wake you up?” asks Nicole, suddenly worried, “I’m sorry!”

“No! I was… baking. Thinking. Thinking and baking”.

Waverly very much wishes she’s just having a very vivid nightmare.

“Hm,” Nicole hums, “it’s early, really. Sometimes I forget not everyone is used to military training”.

Waverly grabs the tray, asking Nicole to follow her into the kitchen.

“Don’t worry about it. Military, uh?”

“I’d rather not talk about it, if you don’t mind,” says Nicole, less bright, less light. Waverly nods in response.

She realizes Nicole Haught is standing in the middle of her kitchen, evidently just out of the shower, not wearing her uniform. She realizes Nicole Haught is wearing tight jeans and a loose black T-shirt. She mentally crosses out the possibility of her attraction having something to do with uniforms. It’s more of a Nicole Haught thing, she realizes.

Fantastic.

She feels a lump in her throat, coughing before she opens her mouth again.

“Not to be rude but… What are you… doing here?” she asks.

“Oh! Yeah, sorry. Snow tires,” Nicole concludes, as if Waverly’s supposed to understand what’s going on with those two words. She clearly doesn’t, and Nicole continues, “I brought you and Wynonna the tires. I was thinking I could help you guys change them, so you don’t have to rely on your… on your boyfriend”.

Nicole seems to struggle with the title, as if it is painful to even remember his existence.

Waverly has never liked him less.

“You _really_ shouldn’t have, Nicole,” she sighs, overwhelmed.

“I know,” Nicole shrugs, “but I have a few days off,” she says, as if going out of her way to buy them snow tires and bringing them over to their house, with coffee, on a Sunday morning, was as simple as holding out the door for someone else.

“I… We don’t deserve you” Waverly smiles, blushing.

Nicole laughs.

“Why don’t you finish you baking-slash-thinking and then we can go change some tires?”

Nicole grins at her, dimples showing, and takes a seat on the dining table. She watches, almost entranced, as a flustered Waverly finishes off the cake and places it in the oven.

“So you are taking college courses, you know four languages, you read Weber in German, you’re a waitress, you’re pretty, _and_ you can bake?” Nicole counts the facts on her fingers, playfully grinning at Waverly as she washes her hands. “Your boyfriend sure is lucky,” she says, honest as always.

Waverly realizes she really needs to talk to Champ.

***

“You got her whipped and she isn’t even dating you,” says Wynonna, slice of cake in hand as she sits and watches Nicole changing the trucks tires. Waverly told her, maybe 4 times, that she was supposed to _learn_ how to change them, not just watch, but Wynonna very seriously told her she was physically incapable of learning anything.

Waverly kind of believes her.

“Stop it,” Waverly blushes, shivering. There’s fresh snow on the yard and her three layers of jackets do little to protect her from the cold.

“Is this like, a queer thing? Help your fellow queers out or something?” Wynonna asks, clearly joking.

“Shut it!” Waverly sighs, “she’s just… really nice”.

“Tall, too. Pretty, although a little too red for my taste,” grins Wynonna. Waverly pushes her lightly on the shoulder.

They sit in silence, watching as Nicole carries the last tire out to the barn. She wears only the shirt, jackets long forgotten, and sweats as Waverly shivers. She feels a pull low in her belly as she stares at the tall woman’s forearm’s muscles.

“Strong,” hums Wynonna.

Waverly pushes her harder.

“Don’t talk about her like that”.

Wynonna laughs, devilishly.

“Keep it in ya pants, baby girl”.

***

Waverly compares, creating patterns she doesn’t think really exist.

Whenever Nicole Haught does something nice, she compares it to something Champ has done.

Apophenia, she tells herself time and time again.

There’s no need to compare, she tells herself time and time again.

Who cares that Champ only changed her tires after she asked him for an entire week? He’s her boyfriend. Nicole is a friend. A really nice friend. Pretty, too. Strong.

Friend.

Apophenia, she reminds herself for the hundredth time, the noun almost seared on her own brain.

False patterns. False perceptions.

(Nicole Haught seems mature, kind and giving, selfless and unaware of her own austerity.

Champ seems like a child, seeking a pat on the back after sharing his toy car with his friend).

***

“I think I should break up with Champ,” sighs Waverly, head hanging off the side of Chrissy’s queen sized bed.

Chrissy spins around in her chair, make up momentarily forgotten.

“What?!”

Dread sets in Waverly’s guts. Chrissy was always a bit of a middle man for her, the person she’d look for when unsure how the _real_ world would take her. She was the one who first took her to High School parties, who’d help her choose the best outfits, who helped her tuck when they had a pool party which Waverly just _had_ to attend.

(She felt sore and sensitive for two days afterwards, the tuck too tight and abrasive, but it was worth it just seeing the other girls faces when they realized her boobs were real and her abs were, too).

“He doesn’t love me, I don’t think”.

Chrissy chews on her cheek for a second.

“He was never very good at showing it,” she says, noncommittal. Chrissy was never one for strong opinions.

“I don’t, either”.

Chrissy sighs.

“I always kinda felt he wasn’t good enough for you,” she starts. “I mean, at first it was nice, right? When we met and all. It was cool having someone like him to like… Introduce you to the world, I guess” she laughs at her own words.

“It was,” Waverly agrees, hands picking at the loose threads on the duvet.

“But he was always so…”

“Stupid?” Waverly supplies. Chrissy laughs, loud and carefree. Waverly laughs with her.

“You don’t need introducing anymore, do you?” Chrissy asks, smiling down at Waverly.

Waverly considers the question.

“Not anymore,” she smiles, “not anymore,” she repeats.

***

Waverly was never too certain on her decisions.

Transitioning felt like the first time she really decided on something, stated what she wanted and told the others to deal with it. It’s hard, making decisions, especially ones you know will not please everyone.

But she knows, has known, maybe, that the one decision she made that was entirely unpleasant to everyone around her was the one which made it possible for her to survive.

Waverly was never too good with fitting inside boxes, always trimming and cutting and scratching herself to fit in. She needs space to breathe, stretch, occupy, unapologetic and expansive.

She decides.

***

“We need to talk”.

Champ’s face goes as white as a sheet.

“Uh. Okay”.

He gestures for her to come in, and she doesn’t bother with formalities before going straight to his bedroom. It’s been a while since she was here, she thinks as she spots beer cans and dirty socks on the floor.

He walks in, closing the door behind him. Waverly sighs with relief when he doesn’t lock it. The sound was always an indicative of his intention, and she’d squirm with the promise of very little pleasure and a great amount of pain.

Champ sits beside her, solemn and quiet for once. The furrow in his brow makes him look older.

“I don’t think you love me,” she goes straight to the point, tired of tiptoeing around him for so many years.

Champ sighs, deep and heavy.

“I do,” he says, and it surprises Waverly, “I just… I don’t think I love you the way I should”.

Waverly feels tears beginning to slide down he cheeks, cursing Champ to hell and back for being so level-headed and honest for the first time in his life.

“It’s not… It shouldn’t be hard, Champ,” she lets out, holding back a sob.

His arms drapes over her shoulders, not heavy and anchoring as it was, but supportive and warm.

“I know, babe,” he says, and the possessive nickname Waverly’d come to hate brings even more tears to her eyes, “it’s my fault”.

They sit in silence, a rarity when it came to Champ. Waverly rests her head on his shoulder.

“I just wanted you to protect me, you know? Care for me,” she sighs, “as I am”.

Champ doesn’t say anything.

“Having you… seeing me like you did… when you did… It’s not enough anymore”.

“I know, Waverly. I tried,” he starts, and Waverly feels his chest shake ever so softly. She realizes he’s crying, too. “You made me so much better, you know? And I’m just holding you back”.

The thing about Champ is that it is easy to forget why Waverly was ever with him in the first place. He’s bad at showing his feelings, he was never one to be overly polite or even gallant. But Waverly was anything but stupid, despite what everyone thought.

Champ was always sweet, willing to understand. He doesn’t have a mean bone in his body, Waverly knows, and he seems to think no one else does, too. It’s all a great big joke, a fun party.

He’s a rich white man, Waverly reminds herself. Everything’s a party.

“I really thought I’d get used to… it. I guess I’m really just as slow as people think,” he laughs at himself, and Waverly notices he was never as unaware as she thought.

Waverly says nothing else, and neither does Champ. They sit together, Waverly crying as Champ holds her. She wonders if she will ever feel like it’s easy to love someone like her, and Champ considers what his life would be like if he could free himself from his own stupidity.

When Waverly leaves, Champ presses a kiss to the top of her head and wishes her all the best. He tells her, with a laugh, that he will still bother her with silly questions and superhero movies. Waverly smiles at him.

“I’m sorry we fought”.

“You were right, dude,” he smiles, sweet and boyish, and Waverly feels as if she’s standing in front of her locker, recently dropped phone in her hand.

Waverly sits on her car, thinking about High School, bad sex and immature men. She realizes it takes courage to admit you own immaturity, and laughs at how funny it is, really, that she suddenly feels for Champ the same feelings she did when they met.

Teenagers are just terrible at differentiating between romance and friendship, she thinks.

Champ plays God of War II in his bedroom and wonders why he couldn’t admit his own inadequacy earlier. He thinks about girls, and definitions, but reaches no conclusions.

***

“Waverly is FREE!” shouts Wynonna, subtle as usual.

Robert laughs from his spot on the couch, heavy boots up and resting on the coffee table.

“Stop it!” Waverly complains, but laughs anyways.

Wynonna invited Chrissy, Stephen and Robert over for an impromptu celebration after Waverly told her she’d broken up with Champ. The five make for a particularly interesting group, with virtually nothing to do with each other, but, surprisingly, a bit of bourbon and a lot of vegan bruschettas can get any party going.

“And he wasn’t a dick about it!” Wynonna sing-songs, light and happy. Waverly smiles.

“I seriously can’t believe that,” Chrissy says, chewing on a piece of bread.

“He wasn’t that bad,” starts Robert, protectively “Waverly isn’t stupid”.

“Thank you, Bobo” Waverly replies, and Wynonna cackles at the nickname. He grins, wolfish and slightly threatening. Stephen laughs, too, seeming singularly taken by Wynonna. He plays with Robert’s rings, slowly turning them around his fingers.

Waverly feels as if someone’s missing, but decides against calling Nicole Haught.

She goes to sleep, still buzzed, after helping a remarkably drunk Wynonna onto her own bed. Her last thought is about how glad she is that family is not a bond of blood, but of alcohol, warmth and laughter.

***

The next time Waverly sees Nicole, she’s standing in front of the only coffee shop in Purgatory, cigarette in hand.

“Smoking kills, Officer!” says Waverly cheerily.

Nicole instantly drops the cigarette, stomping on it as if caught doing something illegal.

“Why is it you always catch me being silly?” she asks with a smile, cheeks red. Waverly attributes it to the biting cold which penetrates through her faux fur coat.

“I’d never take you as a smoker”.

“I’m not,” Nicole laughs, nervous, “not usually. Nerves”.

Waverly nods, deciding not to pry.

“Nerves?”

“Heard the prettiest girl in town is single. I think I function better when the flirting is harmless”.

Waverly laughs, stomach fluttering and palms sweating.

“Cheating on me with the coffee shop?” she asks, pointing to the door. Safe territory. Less flirting.

Nicole blushes furiously, and Waverly cannot blame it on the weather.

“I-You weren’t there”.

“I’m going to open right now. Care for some company?” Waverly asks, gesturing for Nicole to follow.

“If it isn’t a bother,” Nicole starts, glued to her spot.

“You’re never a bother, Officer”.

***

If you asked a 15 year old Waverly if she’d ever be with a girl, she’d very furiously say she liked men and only men. There’s only so much weight her own femininity could carry.

As she talks to Nicole about Pride Parades in the Big City and what it takes to become a cop, watching her long fingers wrap around the mug, soft lips blowing the steam before sipping, she thinks about transitions, change, and courage. She thinks of herself, and for once, she sees strength

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I know Champ is OOC.  
> I think it's lazy and uninteresting to characterize him as this one-sided homophobe who's just stupid. Waverly, to me, is an extremely brave and clever character, and her being with someone that idiotic just makes no sense. I think it's much more interesting to make them incompatible, or Champ as imature, and, yes, stupid at times, but complex and layered.  
> Furthermore, specifically with a trans relationship, I wanted it to be more realistic, and make the internal struggle someone like him would go through a little more humane. Straight guys do face a lot of shit for being with trans women, and it is not rare for them to struggle with their own identity due to other people's influence.


	5. Chapter 5

“Oh _balls_ ”.

Waverly sighs, hands running through her thick hair. She stares at her own body, naked skin shining under the early morning sun coming through the windows in the bathroom.

Her own erection stares back at her, defiant.

“Quit it!” she chastises herself, hands on her hips.

The floor tiles are almost unbearably cold, and she worries her toes might start going a little blue. Annoyingly, ironically, the only part of her body which feels warm is her cock, a strange dichotomy which serves only to frustrate her further.

Waverly Earp groans, moving to test the temperature of the water. The shower is so hot she feels it stinging her own fingers.

Sighing happily, she immerses herself with running water, slow and deliberate.

She avoids herself, awkward as a teenage boy, before relenting with a sigh. It’s been a long time since she last had to tuck while hard, but it was an experience she very much would not like to relive.

She wraps her hand around herself, surprised by her own hardness, an instant sigh of relief leaving her lips.

“Christ’s sake,” she mumbles, frustrated and embarrassed.

For the first time in a very long time, Waverly Earp touches herself, hot water slowly going cold around her. She barely registers it, mind preoccupied with imagining how nice it’d feel to have Nicole Haught’s lips wrapped around her.

***

She spends the rest of the day with what feels like an ever-present blush.

***

“Any luck?” asks Nicole, walking in the Station’s “research” room, which consists of three old desks and boxes upon boxes of old files on missing chickens and bar fights. She holds two cups of coffee in her hands, placing them by Waverly’s side.

Waverly looks up from the enlarged picture she currently holds, eyebrows furrowed.

“Kinda?” she sighs,”Iesus domine mi, scio quia homo peccator sum...” she repeats, as if saying the words aloud can help her understand the killer’s intentions. “It translates to something like… ‘Dear lord Jesus, I know that I am a sinner’. But that doesn’t add up”.

“So like a sinner’s prayer?” asks Nicole, serious. Waverly has never seen her this concentrated before.

“The thing is though… Sinner’s prayers are not an actual thing, as far as actual, definitive sequence of words define one,” Waverly leans back on her chair, shoulders hunched. “That’s a general term for when someone wants to repent”.

“Okay?” Nicole smiles, shy and confused.

“What I mean is, whoever wrote this really _did_ know Latin, not just memorized some random words. In Purgatory! I thought that was my thing!” she huffs indignantly. “Maybe they’re picking it up from a more modern Christian take on the Prayer…”

She hears Nicole chuckling.

“What?” Waverly asks, reaching for her coffee.

“It’s just…” Nicole blushes, “I guess I wasn’t expecting you to be this cute when you’re working”.

Waverly chokes on her coffee.

“Uh… It’s hot,” she explains sheepishly, wishing for the first time she hadn’t agreed to help Nicole with translating the words left on two different crime scenes. Is saving people from a crazy maniac worth making an absolute fool of herself in front of Nicole Haught?

(Yes it is).

“Sure is, Waves,” replies Nicole, very much aware that her own coffee is lukewarm at best.

“I’m 90% sure this is someone with some experience with religion, though”.

“I figured. A priest, maybe?” asks Nicole, long legs dangling from the desk she sits on.

 _Why does she have to be so cool all the time?_ Waverly asks herself.

“I don’t think so, actually,” replies Waverly. Nicole smiles down at her, as if being told she’s wrong by Waverly Earp was a pleasant pastime. Her dimples show, and Waverly squeezes her thighs together. “A student, I’d say. The pattern of the Latin and the choice of words… I don’t think it’s an actual member of the church. It’s a little messy,” she concludes, placing down the ghastly photos.

“Thanks for doing this,” Nicole says, voice soft, “you have no idea how much help you’re being for us”.

“Of course!” Waverly replies. She wants to tell Nicole she’d do a lot of things for her, _to_ her, but swallows it down.

***

“Stealing my gig?” asks Wynonna, feet propped up on the wall as she flips through files Nedley asked her to organize.

“Is it legal to bring police files home, Wy?” asks Waverly, hot chocolate in hand as she settles down on the half of her bed unoccupied by her older sister.

“Uh?” Wynonna stops rifling through the files, “why wouldn’t it be?”

“Confidentiality or something,” Waverly shrugs.

“Confidentiality in _Purgatory?”_ Wynonna cackles, “hell, the entire city knows what’s up each other’s asses,” she shakes her hand dismissively, returning to what most certainly is not helping organize anything.

“Anyways,” Waverly blows on her steaming cup, “Nicole asked me to help her with some translations”.

“Nicole, uh?” Wynonna wiggles her eyebrows, “did she ask for help with anything else?”

Waverly kicks her sister on the head, Wynonna answers with a slap to her shin.

“Stop messing around! There are murders!”

Wynonna lets out a sigh.

“Think this time they’ll figure out who did it?”

Waverly feels the unwelcome feeling of longing as she remembers her father and sister, buried side by side.

Silence falls upon the sisters like a veil, heavy and blinding.

“I don’t want to be buried with them,” Waverly says, finally, heart hammering at the admission.

Thinking of her lost family made her feel the same guilt she felt when, at 8, her sister took her to church for their first Holy Communion, sour, inappropriate and vexatious. Her lack of sadness, like her lack of belief in God, made her feel like a stranger, waiting to be caught.

“We’ll be buried together, just like this,” Wynonna gestures down at their positions, Waverly propped up against the headboard, feet ridiculously near Wynonna’s face, Wynonna with her feet up on the wall, arms resting against her sister’s shin.

“I love you, you idiot,” Waverly grins.

“Backatchya, kiddo”.

***

Waverly wakes up with a start. Her phone rings on the bedside table, insistent, and she groans in response.

“Turn it _off!”_ groans Wynonna, and a pillow flies it’s way across the room, landing on Waverly’s head.

It’s Saturday, Waverly’s brain supplies, efficient as ever.

“What?!” she answers, voice raspy and angry.

“Sorry! Did I wake you up?” replies Nicole.

Nicole Haught is calling me on a Saturday, Waverly’s efficient brain tells her. She sits up.

“Oh hi!” she answers, voice suddenly chipper, “it’s alright. What’s up?”

_What’s up? Jesus._

“Can you head down to the station?”

“What? Are you alright?”

“I’m fine, Waves,” Nicole answers, and Waverly can hear her smiling. “Got some news for you. Take your time, though”.

Waverly does not take her time, the prospect of seeing the one person who she cannot seem to stop thinking about too enticing.

***

“You have mail,” says Nicole, a strange smile on her face.

“Me?”

“I mean, not you… Maybe you. Weird Latin Murderer started his new gig as a mailman, apparently,” explains Nicole, handing Waverly pictures of what looks like a handwritten letter. “Needed my favorite translator’s help”.

“Your favorite, huh?” Waverly asks, and Nicole blushes.

Not above flirting in the face of murder, apparently.

“I’ll go get you some breakfast and you can settle down in my desk, okay?” asks Nicole, already throwing on her jacket.

Waverly knows better than to tell her there’s no need.

***

When Nicole returns, half an hour later and with enough breakfast treats to feed an entire family, Waverly is halfway through the translation.

“His Latin is terrible,” she tells Nicole, thankfully taking her coffee cup. Nicole grins.

“Well, not everyone has as big of a brain as you, miss overachiever”.

“That helps, doesn’t it? He probably studies religion but maybe isn’t that good at it. The handwriting, too,” she drops her pen, deciding to take a break from her work as her stomach grumbles. “Maybe Stephen can help, over at the public library. He probably has records of people who picked up stuff on religion and Latin”.

Nicole smiles, her eyes shining with something a little too close to adoration for Waverly not to squirm under her stare.

“You’re brilliant, Waves”.

The animal Waverly calls her heart bangs against her ribs, desperate to soar up-up-up, infinitely free.

“These are all vegan, by the way,” Nicole gestures to the pastries, “you told me you were vegan, right?”

Waverly wonders if asking someone to marry you before even kissing them is a little too much.

***

“This dude’s dumber than what I thought,” says Nicole, bending over Waverly as she re-reads the translated letter, mostly gibberish about sinning and God and how Purgatory has that name for a reason.

Waverly barely registers the words, the smell of vanilla intoxicating with Nicole’s closeness. It does not help that the taller woman decided to wear what Waverly has ranked as her very best uniform today, her tie resting against Waverly’s shoulder.

“I think I’ll head over to the library. Wanna come with?” asks Nicole, expression expectant.

“Am I allowed too?”

“Special consultant,” Nicole winks.

Waverly’s messy tuck threatens to undo itself.

***

The car ride is an interesting one.

Nicole’s patrol car smells new, although it clearly isn’t, and Waverly notices she listens to Johnny Cash. The melancholic songs used to remind her of her father, _I Walk the Line_ a favorite of his when accompanied by whiskey, and Waverly hopes that will change. Nicole seems to bring change with her.

“Can you promise me something?” asks Waverly, voice low over Cash’s sepulchral tone.

“Perhaps,” replies Nicole, hand resting on the gear shift. Waverly traces the veins in her hand with her eyes.

“Promise me you’ll catch this guy,” she sighs, careful, “this town doesn’t have a good record with catching murderers”.

Nicole looks at Waverly, questioning, before returning her eyes to the road.

“I’d never promise you something I’m not sure I can keep,” Nicole sighs, “but I promise you this, Waverly Earp: I’ll do everything I can to ensure justice”.

A beat.

“I’ll do everything I can to keep you safe”.

***

Stephen is glad to help, and they return to the Station with a pile of library records in the back seat. Nicole tells Waverly she can go home, she could drop her off, but Waverly tells her she’s on a break from college, and she likes feeling useful.

It’s strange, bonding over murders, spending time together as they flip over old records and read bad Latin, but Waverly finds herself immensely pleased she can help with something which feels important, meaningful.

Nicole’s impressed looks don’t hurt, either.

***

Waverly has a nightmare, three days later.

It involves faceless men, Latin words, and her father’s corpse.

She wakes up, covered in sweat, and decides against going back to sleep.

Shaken and confused, with Gus away with friends for the next week and Wynonna passed out on the couch, she calls Nicole, the deafening silence and moving shadows in her room too much to bear.

She picks up on the second ring.

“Waves? You okay?” she asks, frantic.

“That’s my line,” Waverly quips, false excitement in her voice. “I had a nightmare. It’s silly, now that I think of it”.

She hears shuffling on the other end.

“It’s not silly. Does it have something to do with the case?” asks Nicole, attentive as always.

“Yeah. And with my father”.

Nicole’s breathing soothes Waverly, and she counts the seconds between each exhale.

“Was he…?”

“Murdered, yeah. My older sister, too”.

“I’m sorry,” says Nicole, and although Waverly’s heard it a hundred times before, the way Nicole says it, heartfelt and blue, makes it different.

“I’m not,” Waverly says out loud for the first time in her life, “he used to beat me up for being too feminine. My sister always told on me when I did something I wasn’t supposed to, too”.

“Oh, Waverly…” sighs Nicole, and if her previous words were blue, these were an ocean.

“I don’t know why I called you”.

“I’m glad you did, Waves”.

Waverly doesn’t know when she fell back asleep, but when she wakes up the next morning, she notices the call went on for almost an hour.

Nicole had stayed on the line, she knows, making sure she was asleep, safe.

***

As if God’s playing a joke on her, she wakes up a few days later, covered in sweat once more.

This time, she feels herself grinding against the bed, and remembers, with unbearable detail, a dream in which heat enveloped her fingers and Nicole’s voice whispered in hear ear about how good of a girl she was.

***

“Hey, princess,” says Robert, sitting down on a stool by the beer taps.

Waverly serves him a beer before he asks for one, all too familiar with his taste.

“Bobo!” she smiles, waiting for him to gulp it down before placing a kiss on his cheek, rough stubble ticklish on her skin.

The bar’s full for a Thursday, but most customers are already settled, and she takes the time to sip on some water.

“How have you been?”

“I’m good,” she tells him, surprised with how honest the answer is. “And you?”

He smiles at her as if it’s enough of an answer, blue nails tapping against the counter.

“Stephen told me about your career with the Narcs”.

Waverly laughs.

“Barely. Nicole asked for some help with a case. Translations, mostly”.

Robert hums, downing the beer in one swing. Waverly reaches for the empty glass, refiling it.

“Nothing too dangerous, right?” he asks, smiling as he takes the cup.

“No sir,” Waverly replies, his worry a welcome sweetness in her mouth, “as dangerous as Latin gets”.

“It’s weird…” he hums, deep in thought, “not too many murders around here”.

Waverly shrugs.

“By the trailer park, though,” she replies, a synonym of saying those who were killed were seen as little more than worms by the rest of the town, sex workers and homeless folk and drug addicts, “Nedley says we shouldn’t worry too much”.

“Good ol’ Nedley,” Robert grins. “That Nicole girl treating you well?”

“What?” Waverly asks, all too aware of her own inability to lie.

“I know you, little missus,” Robert’s smile widens, predatory, “I see those moon eyes of yours”.

Waverly shrugs, deciding on refilling another customer’s cup. She hears Robert snickering behind her.

***

Waverly walks in, uninvited, and drops a container with a chicken sandwich and fries atop Nicole’s desk.

Nicole lets out an undignified yelp, clutching at her own heart.

Waverly averts her eyes from the redhead’s breasts, focused on her mission. She crosses her arms over her chest.

“Officer Haught”.

“Uh. Hey, Waves”.

“Don’t Waves me!” Waverly stage-whispers, cheeks flushed. She points a finger at Nicole. “You haven’t asked me to come back!”

“What?” Nicole asks, still confused, eyes wide and too similar to a puppy’s for Waverly to maintain her façade.

“You didn’t ask for my help for the case!” Waverly huffs.

“Well, there hasn’t been anything new!” Nicole replies, hands up in surrender. “We’ve been checking the records, some suspects and all. You did good!”

“Nicole Haught!” Waverly slams her hands down on the pile of papers precariously stacked atop the desk, “you didn’t even mention it!”

Nicole mulls something over, squinting her eyes.

“You had a nightmare,” she replies simply, quietly.

“What about it?” asks Waverly, anger long forgotten.

“I was worried. It was getting to you and all,” Nicole sighs, long fingers slowly threading on red hair, “I didn’t want to bother you with it”.

“I can take care of myself, thank you very much!”

“I know!” Nicole huffs, lost, “I should’ve said something. I meant it when I said we don’t have anything new. It just… It broke my heart to see you like that”.

Waverly softens, melted butter under Nicole’s never ending thoughtfulness.

“I’m alright,” she shrugs. “I liked working with you. I guess I wanted it to go on”.

“You… want more people to be murdered?” asks Nicole, serious.

Waverly gasps, eyes widening.

“No! I mean… I just-“

Nicole laughs, high and sweet as honey.

“I’m just messing with you,” she grins, “I enjoyed working with you too, professor. You really did help, too. I shouldn’t tell you this,” Nicole leans over, hands over her mouth, “but I think we’re close”.

Waverly smiles.

Desired and useful. She feels so satisfied, so full with passion and care, she wonders if she will be able to eat.

***

Waverly brings a burger to Wynonna as well, and sips on some tea as both women eat their lunch, stopping only to throw out a thank you in Waverly’s direction before returning to their meals.

She thinks about being protected.

She remembers how it used to make her feel, being cared for. Sweet relief after being told for so long she wasn’t allowed to cry, to express herself, to hug those she loved.

It’s all about balance, Waverly thinks as she watches Wynonna and Nicole bickering over Wynonna stealing the officer’s fries. There’s strength in being protected, as there is weakness in always fending for oneself.

(Nicole pretends not to see Wynonna stealing even more of her fries, winking at Waverly).

***

Nicole sends her a text one afternoon, the notification disrupting her reading of Plath’s _The Bell Jar._

Nicole Haught [04:32 P.M.]: Can you come over to the Station? There’s something I think you should see.

Waverly rushes, arriving in record time.

***

It’s a strange ordeal, witnessing someone being arrested.

Waverly swivels around in Nicole’s chair, curious as to the redhead’s whereabouts. Nedley isn’t there, either, and Lonnie is, as usual, clueless to whatever is happening at the Station. Sometimes Waverly very genuinely wonders how he managed to get in the police force.

Yelling startles her. A door opens and closes, slamming against it’s frame. Sheriff Nedley appears, gruff and annoyed as usual, although Waverly senses a certain amount of satisfaction on him.

A strange man follows, reluctant. Handcuffed, Waverly notices quickly. He alternates between snarling and yelling out senseless phrases.

God.

Sinners.

Waverly’s heart stops beating.

Nicole walks in, hands tightly holding onto the man who’s easily twice her weight, guiding him towards the corridor Waverly knows, thanks to Wynonna, that leads to the jailing cells. Before disappearing, Nicole turns around, spotting Waverly.

She smiles.

***

The sex worker murdered had been with him, Waverly learns.

He was homeless. Trouble with drugs. Dropped out of Christian School when he was a teenager.

His name appeared repeatedly on the Library’s records, often under titles such as Dante’s Inferno and Corderi Colloquorium Centuria Selecta.

An easy arrest, Nicole tells her with a sad smile.

Waverly realizes Nicole may care for the law, for being righteous, but does not enjoy the suffering it so often inflicts upon others.

She hopes he’s taken to a psychiatric hospital, she tells Waverly.

As the sun sets and they sip on the commemorative beers Nicole stole from the Station’s fridge, Waverly learns three things.

The first: Nicole is not a Police Officer because she believes in punishment, but because she believes in justice, in care, and in hope.

The second: the smile was for Waverly. It was a thank you, a “you did it”. It celebrated her, and not the arrest.

The third: Waverly is falling in love with Nicole Haught, except it feels less like a fall and more like laying down over fresh sheets after a long day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shorter chapter, but I felt it was the right spot to end it in.  
> As usual, thank you for the kind words, and hopefully you won't get too used to two updates so near each other. Been feeling particularly inspired lately.


	6. Chapter 6

Snow melts, dirty water mixing with fumes and garbage to create a despicable slush which slowly runs around the streets of Purgatory. Waverly never quite liked this time of the year: a strange transition, a little too sudden, from blinding white to refreshing green. The leftovers, gray water and piles of old snow around the center of town remind her of the day she found out half her family was dead.

(She’d been playing by herself in school, trying to climb up a pile of dirtied snow, when her principal approached her, followed by her aunt. She knew instantly, young as she was, that something was very, very wrong).

(During the funeral, she felt out of place, like car keys placed on the kitchen counter instead of atop the coffee table. Gus gave her ice cream and marshmallows, and her delight with the sugar irritated Wynonna, who was the saddest Waverly’d ever seen her. Wynonna pushed her, that day, and she fell in a puddle of dirty water.

Car keys, strange amongst the silverware, getting in the way).

***

Wynonna and Gus seem to be planning something behind Waverly’s back, though she pretends not to notice. After dinner, Wynonna sits with Gus outside, coffee in hand, for longer that Waverly remembers ever seeing them both interacting.

Waverly knows it probably has something to do with Wynonna doing late night shifts at a diner by the edge of town, and worries, chewing on her nails.

The last time Wynonna’d worked this hard, she used the money to buy plane tickets.

***

“I’m bored,” Waverly sighs, legs thrown over Chrissy’s thighs as they watch old cartoons.

“Can’t you go like, one week without studying?” Chrissy asks, smirking.

“It’s not about studying,” Waverly rolls her eyes, “I just… I’m not doing anything! I finished all the books I bought on Amazon already”.

“Why don’t you ask your girlfriend to take you out?”

“What?” Waverly gasps, face red and fingers tingling.

Chrissy laughs.

“The soon-to-be-Sheriff,” Chrissy snorts, “relax, Waves. I know you’re just friends”.

Waverly stares at the television, Spongebob Squarepants suddenly very interesting. She starts to feel her stomach twisting, heart rate rising.

“You good?” asks Chrissy distractedly. Ten minutes had already passed.

Waverly chews on the inside of her cheek, desperately urging the sting to ground her.

“Waves?”

“What would you think?” asks Waverly, blurted out words almost too fast for her friend to understand.

“About…?”

“Me. Haught- I mean, a girl. Any girl. Woman,” Waverly stumbles on her own words, mouth dry.

“You with any girl? Ew,” Chrissy says, and Waverly’s heart drops, squished under her own weight. “You with Nicole Haught, though,” she clicks her tongue, smiling. Waverly gathers enough courage to look her in the eye, and Chrissy winks.

Waverly sighs with relief.

“Had you for a second, uh?” Chrissy laughs, playfully shoving her feet. “Waves, I already spent enough of my life judging you for things you had no control over,” she shrugs, “as long as you’re happy, I don’t really care”.

They sit in silence, Waverly wondering how she got so lucky to have these people in her life.

“Also, my dad won’t shut the hell up about her,” Chrissy huffs, “I’m pretty sure he’d adopt her if he could”.

“Would that make me your in-law?” Waverly grins.

Chrissy cackles in return.

***

Waverly gets home with heavy shoulders and pain in her back. She sighs, throwing her bag over the couch before making a beeline for the kitchen, praying there’s something for her to eat.

Wynonna and Gus sit on the kitchen table, quiet and resolute.

“Uh,” mutters Waverly, intelligently. She stands still by the entrance.

“Can we talk for a second?” asks Gus, and the kindness in her voice tells Waverly this is most probably not good.

She sits down without a word.

“Baby girl,” starts Wynonna, eyes gleaming with an unknown expression, “how would ya like it if we moved?”

Waverly thinks of Greece, of backpacking, of unstable income and no college degree, palms sweating despite the crisp weather.

“Are you… Are we leaving?” she asks, feeling like the 10 year old girl who’d take every word Wynonna said as the law. No questions asked.

“If you want,” shrugs Wynonna, “Gus is kinda getting tired of this pretty face. You could come with”.

Waverly has a hard time comprehending why Wynonna is so… cheerful about it.

“Just tell her, Wynonna,” chastises Gus, arms crossed.

Waverly’s heart stops beating.

“I’m moving back,” starts Wynonna. _Back?_ “to the Homestead”.

“Wait, what? The Homestead? In Purgatory?” asks Waverly, eyes wide. “You’re not leaving again?”

“What? No, dude. Still gonna bother you a whole bunch,” Wynonna smiles, and Waverly sighs, eyes closed. “What do you say, uh?”

“About what?”

“Moving with me,” Wynonna says, simple and flat.

“Us?” Waverly asks, dumbfounded, “Living in the Homestead by ourselves?” she looks at Gus as if requesting permission.

“It’s yours,” shrugs Gus, blasé.

“I don’t like the place,” adds Wynonna with a shrug, “but it’s ours. If I turn 27 and still live with Gus, I’m afraid one of us will end up dead”.

Gus frowns at her before kissing her on the cheek.

They agree to visit the old house the next day.

***

The house is rundown, to put it quite nicely. Waverly wanders around the old rooms with almost no good memories of the place.

“I though you wouldn’t want to come back here,” says Wynonna, arm draped over Waverly’s shoulders as they look at Willa’s old room. _My room,_ thinks Waverly.

She shrugs.

“I don’t like running,” she replies, “and if you moved by yourself you’d last a week, tops”.

Wynonna chuckles, fussing up Waverly’s hair.

***

Nicole texts Waverly, an occurrence not nearly common enough for Waverly’s heart not to beat faster.

Nicole Haught [12:46 P.M.]: Are you free today?

Waverly is not free today, although it is a Saturday. She has to work, she knows.

She replies with a “Sure”, followed by a smiley face.

Nicole calls her.

“Nicole, hey,” Waverly smiles, knowing the police officer will not be able to see it.

“Hey, Waves,” says Nicole, out of breath, “I brought some files with me from the Station that I think you’d like to check out. For research”.

“For research,” Waverly replies, smiling still, “are you… running?”

“Treadmill at the gym,” replies Nicole, “anyways, I thought maybe you could stop by at my place to check those out? Have some tea?”

Waverly beams, face red. Nicole is an open book, at least to her.

“It’s a date,” she replies, “text me your address”.

She spends most of the afternoon trying not to picture Nicole Haught, sweaty and glistening, doing push-ups.

***

“That is the _lamest_ date I’ve ever heard of,” laughs Wynonna, impatiently helping Waverly pick out an outfit. “Why are you even dressing up for what, a study session? With Carrot-top?”

“It is a date!” sighs Waverly, infuriated, “she’s just not obnoxious!”

“If someone asked me to come over to read old-ass files I’d kick them in the balls”.

“That’s your freaking _job,_ Wynonna”.

Wynonna throws a velvet skirt on Waverly’s face.

***

Nicole opens the door almost as soon as Waverly knocks. She holds an orange cat in one hand and a beer bottle in the other.

“Uh,” she stares.

Waverly smirks.

“Hey, Nicole,” she smiles, eyes squinting as Nicole’s face goes through various shades of red.

The good thing about winter being over was that Waverly could go back to wearing impractically short skirts and cropped shirts.

“You look really hot,” says Nicole, then stops, eyes wide. “Sorry. Nice. You look really nice”.

Waverly laughs as Nicole gestures for her to come in.

Nicole Haught’s house smells of lit candles, French vanilla and leather. It is nice, much nicer than Waverly expected, and she hums lowly as she takes in the different photographs which cover Nicole’s walls and the rugged, rustic furniture.

“It’s a bit messy,” Nicole apologizes, dropping her cat on the floor. She scurries away, and Waverly frowns.

“Your cat doesn’t like me,” she says, pouting.

“Calamity Jane is a complicated lady,” Nicole smiles, “she’ll like you soon enough. Everyone does,” she says, with a matter-of-factly shrug.

“Everyone, uh?” asks Waverly, smirking.

“Uh. Would you like some beer? Wine?” Nicole flushes.

“I thought we were having tea,” says Waverly, suddenly very into watching Nicole squirm.

“I think you’ll take this a little better if you have some wine in you,” says Nicole, uncharacteristically quizzical, and Waverly frowns.

“Take what?”

Nicole disappears inside the kitchen, and Waverly feels her own hands sweating, fingers rubbing against the old, well-worn leather of the couch. She notices there are no pictures of anyone resembling Nicole’s family, only people around her age, smiling in front of historical buildings or on top of mountains. There’s a woman, dark-skinned and beautiful, who seems to appear often, sometimes awfully close to Nicole’s side.

Waverly’s stomach feels heavy, as if she’d just swallowed lead.

This isn’t a date.

The officer returns with a stack of brown envelopes and a glass of wine. She hands Waverly the wine, solemn expression on her face.

“I’m not… I didn’t want to meddle,” she says, sighing. She sits beside Waverly, the space between them uncomfortable as the space between the wooden planks of a bridge. “But you… You told me about your father and I just… I got curious, I guess”.

Waverly feels every cell in her body screaming for her to get up and leave. The past is hard to forget, all too easy to remember.

“I don’t want to… It’s done. It already happened”.

“I know, Waves,” sighs Nicole. “Wynonna looked for it with me, actually. She didn’t want me to tell you”.

“Wynonna… What?”

Nicole looks at Waverly, withdrawn. Waverly realizes she doesn’t know the woman sitting beside her, not really. She hands her the papers.

Waverly reads in silence, over and over and over again. She remembers Wynonna’s anger and how the subject was avoided around their house.

She thinks of dirty puddles of melted snow.

“Wynonna knew?” asks Waverly. She stares at the paper, hands shaking.

“Not all of it,” says Nicole, “but I think you should discuss that with her, not with me”.

Silence, loud and desperate.

“Why did you show me this?”

Nicole rubs her hands against her short hair, leaving it disheveled. Waverly would normally find it quite charming.

She doesn’t.

“I thought you deserved to know”.

Waverly laughs, dry and mean and empty.

“I _deserve_ to know? That I’m the reason almost everyone in my family is dead?”

Waverly gets up, throwing the papers onto Nicole’s lap before leaving.

***

She takes every extra shift Shorty can offer, until he tells her she needs to rest. She tells him she’s rested, she doesn’t want to stay around the house.

Half of it is true.

***

She manages almost a week avoiding both Nicole and Wynonna, thankful her sister is working two jobs so she won’t have to look her in the eye.

“Waves?” calls Wynonna, entering the living room as Waverly rifles through an old book. She doesn’t answer.

“Waverly!” repeats Wynonna, obnoxiously sitting beside her.

“What?” asks Waverly, not looking up.

“I was thinking we could go up to the Homestead today, check what will need work. Maybe we could start renovating next week,” says Wynonna, a sugar-covered donut in her hand. She takes a bite.

“No, thank you”.

“What? I thought you were excited, dude,” she shoves Waverly’s shoulder.

“Leave me alone!” bursts Waverly, closing her book.

“What the hell?” Wynonna asks, brow furrowed.

Waverly takes a deep breath before standing up. She counts to ten, and back to one, but her anger only seems to rise.

“You knew,” she says simply, arms crossed across her chest.

“What? Knew what?” asks Wynonna, taking another bite of the donut.

Waverly laughs in disbelief.

“Oh, I don’t know, that I’m not your _sister?”_ Waverly nearly yells, eyes glistening with unshed tears.

Realization dawns on Wynonna, a raging wave.

“Who…?” she starts, eyes quickly darting around the room as if looking for a way out, “that _fucking_ asshole!” she grunts.

“You’re the fucking asshole! Twelve years, Wynonna!” Waverly’s tears start falling, free and untamed. “You knew for twelve fucking years and you never told me!”

“It doesn’t mean anything, baby girl!” Wynonna yells, rising.

“Don’t you dare use that on me!” Waverly returns, sobs wrecking through her frame. “It doesn’t _mean anything?_ That I’m not your sister? That our dad was a fucking murderer? It doesn’t _mean anything?_ ”

Waverly’d often wondered why their family was so cursed, why there were so many rumors. Bullshit, Wynonna would always say, no one really knows what happened.

Maybe they didn’t know for sure, Waverly thinks.

Wynonna sits back down, defeated. She sighs.

“I didn’t know about our mom,” says Wynonna, “I didn’t know she… He told us she died on a car accident”.

She had died in a car accident, Waverly knew. Nicole’s files told her that, and the following ones told her the reason the car had crashed.

Long, spotty investigations. Missing pieces, the word “confidential” staring back at Waverly. Nedley must’ve thought it was a kindness.

“He killed her, Wynonna”.

Wynonna sobs, a strange and shallow sound Waverly doesn’t remember ever hearing. It echoes around the living room.

“I know,” Wynonna presses her face against her open palms, “I know”.

Waverly sits down. She searches and searches, but finds no pity in her.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asks, voice flat. “That that was way he hated me so much?”

“He hated all of us, Waverly. He was a fucking monster”.

“Not Willa,” replies Waverly, “and not you, either. Not always”.

Wynonna sighs, eyes red and cheeks wet, and stares up at the ceiling.

“What good would it be?” she asks, still staring up. “He’s dead. She’s dead. It doesn’t matter anymore”.

The way she says it, looking up, voice filled with regret and bitterness, makes Waverly think about Sinner’s prayers.

Maybe God could find it in him to forgive her, but Waverly does not think Wynonna could ever repent, not with her.

“It matters to me, Wynonna,” she replies, emotionless, “it’s my identity. It’s the reason they’re all dead”.

She gets up, slowly walking upstairs.

Waverly quietly, methodically packs a small suitcase. She walks down the stairs, the bag thudding along. Wynonna sits on the same spot, head in her hands.

“Tell Gus I’m over at Bobo’s,” she says, not waiting for a response before leaving.

***

She stops in front of Robert’s house, but does not have the courage to go in. Her throat feels dry and scratchy from sobbing, her cheeks warm and bloated. She watches as the sun slowly sets behind the buildings.

She’s not an Earp, she thinks to herself.

Her father had killed her mother, she repeats for the hundredth time.

She feels the scars on her back burning, the single large welt on her left thigh mocking her, and wonders why she is so shocked. A violent man, as he always was. Vile, too. It shouldn’t come as a surprise, not really.

For the first time, she allows herself to feel relief he is dead, no matter by whose hand, and the weight that leaves her shoulders is so great she fears she might float away.

The thought of her own birth, and the collateral damages it had had on her family grounds her right back.

The price of life is always death, she knows.

***

Waverly finds herself driving through town again, late enough for her to be the only one outside. She’s not crying anymore, but her head pounds against her skull and her heart feels like an old engine, struggling to cough up it’s next movements.

She stops in front of a now familiar blue house, not bothering to clear up her face before leaving her car.

***

She knocks once, twice. She hears bare feet padding against the hardwood floor.

“Who is it?” asks a voice, familiar and sweet like honey.

Waverly doesn’t reply.

A moment later, Nicole Haught’s door is thrown open. Waverly could almost laugh at her expression, thrown off and confused, hair messy and pajama pants with a little too many rainbows for a dignified police officer to wear.

She starts sobbing instead, suitcase dropped against the floor.

Nicole instantly wraps her arms around Waverly, strong and safe and comforting.

“Oh, sweetheart,” Nicole whispers against Waverly’s hair, “I’m so sorry. I’m _so_ sorry”.

Waverly sobs, loud and ugly, and Nicole whispers, low and sweet. A small frame, wrecking forcefully against a rock.

Waverly has no idea how much time has passed. Maybe ten minutes. Maybe an hour.

“I’m sorry,” she apologizes, slowly, regretfully, leaving Nicole’s embrace. Her shirt is so wet with tears it’s nearly see-through.

“Don’t be, sweetheart. It’s okay,” replies Nicole, a soothing hand slowly running up and down Waverly’s forearm.

“I’m still mad at you, too,” Waverly says, an afterthought as Nicole bends down to pick up her bag and walks inside. “You had no right”.

“That’s alright,” says Nicole, locking the door after Waverly, and Waverly believes wholeheartedly that it really is alright. “We can work it out”.

“I didn’t know where to go,” she says, dumbly standing by the door.

Nicole looks back, returning and grabbing Waverly’s hand. Idiotically, Waverly’s stomach erupts, convulsing against the feeling of warmth the hand gives her.

“It’s okay, Waves,” Nicole tells her as they slowly ascend the stairs. “You can stay here for as long as you like”.

“Fuck…” Waverly sighs, and Nicole looks back, surprised at the profanity, “why did you have to show me that, you big… tall… idiot,” Waverly says, the insult weak in it’s insincerity.

Nicole stops by a door frame, turning on the lights before walking in.

Waverly stands inside Nicole Haught’s bedroom, thinking about how this is probably the least expected reason she’d ever come here.

An orange cat snores lightly, laying by the right corner of the king sized bed. White sheets, blinding in their cleanliness, soft. Messy. Nicole had been sleeping, Waverly remembers. There’s very little furniture inside, a small dresser with a expertly pressed uniform hanging on the door, a reading chair with a pile of books by it’s side. Nicole leaves the suitcase by the corner before turning back, smiling at Waverly ever so softly.

“I couldn’t deal with knowing something so important about you and just… not telling you. I meant what I said. You deserved to know,” Nicole sighs, “and I can’t even begin to imagine how much it must hurt but…” she trails off, unsure.

Waverly doesn’t move, and neither does Nicole. They stare at each other, and Waverly feels a sense of connection she’d never felt before.

She feels seen, understood. Nicole asks no questions, makes no excuses. She’s transparent and open, caring. Waverly thinks about the dark skinned woman, but a strange feeling settles on her stomach.

Trust.

She trusts Nicole Haught.

“Can you stay with me? I need…” she trails off, not sure what she needs.

Nicole nods. She shushes away the cat, grumbling about how opportunistic she is, before adjusting the pillows.

Waverly takes off her shoes, her eyes still stinging with the urge to cry. In socks and jeans, she lays in bed.

Nicole moves to the pile of books, staring at the titles before settling with _To Kill a Mockingbird._ She returns to the bed, turning on a lamp.

“What are you doing?” asks Waverly, already nestled under the fluffy blankets, grateful for the warmth.

“My mom used to read to me when I was nervous or sad,” says Nicole, looking down at Waverly. “I’m not too good at it, but it might help you take your mind off things”.

Waverly feels her heart slowly return to it’s normal pace, and her eyes slowly clear, tears gone. She smiles.

“I think I’d like that a lot, Nicole,” she says.

Nicole gestures for her to come closer, and she does, head resting against her thigh, blankets up to her nose.

Nicole starts reading, and the sound feels like warm cherry wine by the campfire. Her hand slowly runs through Waverly’s hair, in rhythm with her words. Waverly drifts off to sleep with nothing in her mind but the sound of cherry wine, and the warmth it emanates.


	7. Chapter 7

When Waverly wakes up, she’s alone.

She thinks she is, that is, until she manages to open her eyes. Calamity Jane stares back at her lazily, curled up against the pillow Nicole had previously occupied. Waverly sighs deeply. She’d hoped it had all been a dream, those extremely realistic ones that make you wake up with relief it wasn’t all real.

It’s all real though, Waverly thinks to herself, stretching with care as not to bother the cat laying down beside her. She wonders if Nicole is home.

Waverly gets up slowly, not bothering to check her phone before entering the adjacent bathroom. It’s probably filled with missed calls and texts from Wynonna, she reasons.

The woman staring back at her is foreign. She looks rested, more rested than she’d been all week. Her long hair flows down her shoulders, messy. She allows herself to feel pride, if only for a moment.

She thinks of her 7 year old self, hair shaved to a tight buzz cut, in cartoon themed shirts she hated. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Power Rangers. She remembers asking her father to get her a pink shirt once, and almost recoils with the memory of the stinging slap she’d received in return.

Pride.

If her 7 year old self could see her now, she’d probably laugh in disbelief. In relief.

So Waverly does. She laughs, her reflection laughing with her.

***

Waverly decides to check downstairs, slowly descending the steps with unfamiliarity. She feels like she’s seeing this part of the house for the first time, too out of it the night before to really remember much. She’d halfheartedly washed her face and fixed her hair, almost certain she was alone in the house, and instantly regrets it when the smell of coffee and waffles hits her nostrils.

The couch is covered in blankets.

“Good morning!” says Nicole, cheerful in the way only honest-to-god morning people would be while making breakfast.

A second later and her head pops into view by the door frame of the kitchen, wet hair slicked back. She smiles at Waverly.

“Come on. I made breakfast”.

Waverly moves slowly through the living room, almost uncertain. She sits down in front of a plate of waffles and bacon without a word. Had Nicole forgotten she was vegan?

The officer sits down in front of her, two coffee mugs in hand. She places the one with milk in front of Waverly.

“It’s fake bacon,” she says, “and soy milk. I know you don’t like soy milk that much but I only had that. I can buy some other later if you want”.

Against her still-there anger and confusion with her current situation, Waverly lets a small smile make it’s way to her lips.

“It’s perfect. Thank you”.

“The waffle… is vegan too,” Nicole finishes with a frown, “am I boring you? I can leave you be, if you want”.

“No! I mean,” Waverly sighs, finally looking up. “I’m still… Processing. Everything”.

Nicole hums in response, nodding before she starts eating her own food. Waverly takes her in, the old police academy sweatshirt contrasting against her fair skin, her wet hair glistening under the morning sun.

“What time is it?” asks Waverly before bringing a small piece of bacon to her mouth.

“Just after nine,” replies Nicole, then “is the bacon okay? This suckers are really hard to get right”.

“It’s good,” Waverly mumbles.

It’s silent as they eat, and although it is not uncomfortable, Waverly feels strange, as if it is inappropriate for her to be there. She chews slowly, mechanically, barely registering the flavor of the food.

“Hey,” comes Nicole’s soft voice, “you can eat, and then you can take a nice bath, and I’ll be here for you, okay? Whatever you need”.

Waverly believes her.

***

She takes her time, relaxing as the hot water soaks in her worries. They feel secondary for a moment, and she’s thankful, cleaning herself with religious, almost systemic care. After she’s done, she repeats the motions again, and then a third time. It is only when the water has gone unbearably cold and her skin feels sensitive to the touch that she rises, naked form shivering as she wraps herself in a ridiculously fluffy towel Nicole had handed her.

She puts on leggings, throwing on an old shirt before rifling through Nicole’s closet for a sweatshirt. She finds one, with Trinity college’s blazon engraved in the front.

She’s in pain, she reasons to herself. She’s allowed to steal as many sweatshirts as she wants. 

It has nothing to do with the soft smell of vanilla and leather wafting off the fabric.

***

“I had a fight. With Wynonna”.

“About the files?” asks Nicole, slow and careful. She sits on the armchair beside the couch, Calamity Jane sleeping soundly on her lap. Waverly sips on her tea, legs crossed over the couch.

“She said it didn’t matter,” she replies with a sardonic smile.

“Maybe it didn’t matter to her,” Nicole says, reasonably.

“Wouldn’t it matter to you if your sister wasn’t your sister?” asks Waverly, feeling anger rise up once more.

“I don’t know. Maybe,” replies Nicole calmly, “but she didn’t know everything was as… violent as it was. She was a kid, too, Waves”.

Waverly digests her words with care, as if evaluating how true they could be. She places the mug of tea down on the coffee table, fiddling with the strings of the stolen sweatshirt. Nicole hadn’t mentioned it.

“I’m probably the worst person to talk about family with,” chuckles Nicole, hand rubbing Calamity Jane between her ears. “But Wynonna loves you. She thought she was protecting you”.

“I don’t need to be protected!” Waverly replies, frustration giving way to exhaustion, “not by you, not by her, not by anyone”.

Nicole nods slowly. Calamity Jane rises up, stretching before leaping off her lap. Both women watch her, Waverly incredulous, as the cat approaches her, jumping on the couch and resting her curled body in the space between Waverly’s crossed legs.

“She likes me!” she stage-whispers, afraid moving would make the cat change her mind.

Nicole smiles, dimples showing.

“Told you she would”.

Waverly cautiously starts petting the animal, and Nicole watches, a mixture of fondness and adoration evident in her expression. Waverly looks at her, face serious.

“Are you sure I can stay here? I really don’t want to be a bother”.

“It’s a pleasure having you here, Waves. Don’t worry,” starts Nicole, “although I think you should talk with Wynonna,” she adds, hands raised in surrender.

Waverly lets her head thud against the leather.

“Did she read… everything?” she asks.

“Yeah,” says Nicole with a hint of regret in her voice, “I really shouldn’t have started all this”.

Waverly considers it.

“I guess not,” she agrees, “but I’m glad you did. In a way”.

A beat.

“I don’t even know why I was so shocked, you know?” Waverly lets out a shuddering breath, “my father was always so violent with me. It shouldn’t surprise me he’d be capable of something like that. I’m almost surprised he didn’t just shoot her or something,” she says, instantly regretting the bitterness of her words.

Nicole doesn’t seem to mind.

“He wasn’t a good man,” she agrees, eyes squinting under the warm light coming from the window. Waverly looks at her, appreciating the way the sun makes her copper strands glow orange, a warm, fiery halo framing her face.

“Why is it we only hang out when bad stuff happens?” she asks, small smile playing on her lips.

Nicole chuckles, bright and cheerful. Before she can answer, someone knocks on her door.

***

Waverly doesn’t move, not at first. She watches as Nicole gets up, quickly making her way to the front door, feet still bare.

She looks down at the snoring cat on her lap, fingers slowly running through the soft fur.

She hears a sickly, muffled thud.

“You little shit!” echoes Wynonna’s voice, the sound reaching Waverly’s ear with nauseating clarity.

She stands up, not worrying about the sleeping cat, which lands on her feet with a soft thud, scurrying away.

“What the hell are you doing here?!” she asks before she even sees her sister, blood simmering.

“You’re coming home with me right _now,_ ” says Wynonna, with shocking seriousness.

Waverly laughs, empty and forced.

“You can’t tell me what to do,” she replies, crossing her arms. Her eyes drift to the side, to Nicole Haught resting against the door frame, clutching her own face. “Nicole?”

“Uh… hey,” she replies, still facing forward.

Wynonna stares at Waverly, Nicole’s existence less than a stone in her boot.

“Waverly Earp. Listen to me,” she says, fists clenched. The soft, cold breeze blows on her unruly hair, making her look like some sort of cartoony villain.

Waverly ignores her, placing her hands on Nicole’s shoulders and slowly forcing her to turn around. The redhead faces her, slowly letting go of her own face.

Blood slowly trickles down her nose, her right eye only half-way open.

Waverly stares back at Wynonna, chin raised up in defiance.

“Are you insane?! Did you just _punch_ her?” she asks, stepping in-between the women.

Wynonna rolls her eyes, hands gesturing dismissively towards Nicole.

“She had no right-“

“You had no right! You had no right to hide _anything_ from me, yet here we are!” she points her index finger in Wynonna’s face, who, to her credit, looks appropriately terrified. “And now you come in _here_ to punch my-” she stops, unsure what to say.

Wynonna catches on.

“Your what, uh?” she asks, pressing her chest against Waverly’s accusatory finger. “Little girlfriend? Your pet lesbian? Goody two-shoes over here?” she bristles, eyeing Nicole with spite, “she has nothing to do with our family, Waverly. She’s fucking with us”.

Waverly takes a deep breath, closing her eyes and lowering her hand.

“Wynonna,” she starts, voice eerily low, “I’m only going to say this once. You lied to me for twelve years about who my father was,” she stares at Wynonna as her mouth opens, eyes warning to shut up, “you never told me _our_ father,” she says, mockingly, “hated me because I wasn’t even his. And then you learn that he was the reason our mother died that day, and what do you do? You tell Nicole not to tell me, as if I’m still a fucking child!”

She’s so exasperated she can feel her own blood pressure dropping, vision starting to get cloudy.

“And then you learn that my fucking _real_ father was also a god-damned psycho, and don’t think any of that is important information”.

Wynonna stares, dumbfounded, eyes glistening with something between anger and sadness.

“So you turn back right now and you go back home and you tell Gus I’m coming back when _I_ feel like it and _maybe_ ” she says, the sound muffled by her own clenched jaw, “I’ll consider speaking to you again”.

Waverly Earp, if only by name, turns around, arm wrapped around Nicole’s waist, closing the front door without turning back.

***

Nicole tells her she’s fine incessantly, but Waverly manages to force her to sit down on her bed before rifling through her bathroom cabinets in search of bandages.

“I cannot believe she did that to you,” Waverly clenches her jaw, fingers delicately placed on Nicole’s chin as she takes in the damage done.

Nicole’s nose doesn’t seem to be broken, but it’s a sickly shade of red, and blood still drips down, already leaving a stain on her sweatshirt. Her right eye swelled up quickly, and Waverly briefly wonders if Nicole can actually see anything, the entire socket a weird shade of purple.

“She’s got a mean right hook,” says Nicole, small smile on her lips even as Waverly clicks her tongue in censure.

She brings a damp cloth to the woman’s nose, slowly clearing away the blood. Nicole doesn’t flinch.

“I kinda brought it on myself, I guess,” says Nicole with a shrug.

Waverly hums, midway between agreeing and berating.

“I only bring you trouble, uh?” she asks the redhead, thankful her nose has stopped bleeding.

“I don’t mind getting in trouble, miss Earp,” Nicole replies, smirking. Waverly rolls her eyes at the woman’s audacity.

“I can’t do much for the eye,” she says, handing Nicole an ice pack, which she dutifully presses against her eye.

“It’s fine, Waves. I’ve had worse”.

Waverly believes her this time, too.

***

“I’m not… fucking with you,” says Nicole, both women laying down on the spacious bed, staring up at the ceiling. She moves, the ice pack rustling as she looks over at Waverly.

Waverly moves to rest on her side.

“I know,” she answers with sincerity.

“I… I really care about you, Waverly,” Nicole says, serious, “I wish you didn’t have to suffer”.

Waverly chuckles.

“We all do, I guess”.

Nicole stares back at her, focused.

Waverly takes in her brown eyes, even bruised, the upturn of her lips, the soft curve of her jaw. She sighs.

“What?” asks Nicole.

Waverly wants nothing more than to reach over and pull the woman towards her, to taste honey and cherry wine and molasses.

“How did you know you liked girls?” she asks in turn, hoping the message is clear.

Nicole smiles a cheeky smile.

“In my experience…” she starts, still smiling, “if you’re wondering, you probably do”.

Waverly stares back, terrified.

“You scare me, Nicole Haught,” she says finally.

Nicole smiles even wider, perfect teeth showing. Waverly’s lower belly warms at the sight.

They look at each other, Waverly’s heart pounding so hard against her ribcage she wonders if Nicole can hear it. Nicole’s smile never falters.

“My sister just punched you in the face,” Waverly says.

“She did,” Nicole smiles.

“I just showed up here in the middle of the night,” Waverly says.

“You did,” Nicole smiles.

“How come you’re just… fine with everything?”

“Sometimes,” Nicole starts, hand once again pressing the ice pack against her eyes, “when you really care about someone,” she says, tongue wetting her lips, “nothing you have to take for them feels like more than a little poke to the ribs. This is nothing, Waverly Earp”.

Waverly stares in wonder.

“I think… caring about me is a little more than a poke in the ribs”.

“Maybe it is,” Nicole agrees calmly, “if it’s a fifteen story fall, it will still be nothing. You could never be a burden to me”.

Waverly thinks of the blossoming wild gaillardias which she tended to when she lived at the Homestead. She remembers the love she felt for them, how nice it felt to carefully pick herself bouquets, how she used to pretend they were her hair, yellow and plentiful. The small bushes right by the line of their property a sanctuary, quiet and colorful and _hers._

***

Waverly isn’t sure how, or when, but she falls asleep again, mind exhausted. When she wakes up, Nicole is sitting on the reading chair, the cursed files on her lap. She no longer holds the ice pack against her bruised face, but with no blood and the swelling under control, Waverly cannot find it in her to worry too much.

(She finds the black eye a little hot, though she’d never say it aloud).

“How did you get these, anyways?” she asks, lazily stretching on the bed, mind still hazy.

Nicole looks up, startled, before a soft expression falls upon her face.

“Just went through the files Nedley keeps in his office”.

“They’re confidential,” says Waverly matter-of-factly.

Nicole only shrugs.

“Nicole Haught,” Waverly starts, “did you break the law for me?”

“Theoretically, Wynonna did the law breaking part,” Nicole replies with a grin, “I was just… there. Conveniently”.

Waverly smiles, heart a little lighter.

“I don’t deserve you,” she says, looking at the long legs stretched over the chair, astute eyes staring back at her.

“You deserve much more, Waverly Earp”.

Waverly’s stomach twists, heart beating faster.

***

Nicole tells her she has to go to the police station, but it will not take long. Waverly is almost certain she’s making it up so she can go get them a late lunch, even though she’d offered to cook about ten times.

Nicole returns as Waverly showers, obsessively craving the feeling of being _clean_.

When she walks down the stairs, there’s a full table of food laid out for her, a bottle of wine already opened and waiting. Her wet hair drips, water droplets absorbed by her cotton shirt. Nicole Haught, black eye and soft blue sweater, thigh blue jeans and messy red hair, walks out of the kitchen, wine glasses precariously dangling in one hand, a small bouquet of flowers in the other.

“You never got your date,” she says with a shrug.

The flowers are simple, fresh and colorful. Pink, Waverly’s favorite color.

“You look really pretty, Waves,” says Nicole, honesty almost blinding as Waverly’s brain barely registers that she’s wearing pajamas.

Waverly feels her own stomach erupt again, twisting and turning as her heart begs her to _please_ allow it to fly away.

“You god damned _idiot,”_ Waverly sighs, clenching her jaw.

Nicole stares back, confused. She opens her mouth, but nothing comes out.

Waverly almost runs, rushed and desperate for air.

Nicole Haught lets go of both the glasses, which smash against the wooden floor, and the bouquet, which lands with a soft thud.

Waverly registers neither, too preoccupied as she all but jumps on Nicole, legs enlacing her hips as Nicole holds onto her with a firm grip, barely moving from where she stands.

When their lips meet, Waverly feels feverish, Nicole’s lips so soft and inviting and _Nicole_ she can barely breathe, can barely function. It’s a strange kiss, too, a mixture of softness and warmth and marshmallows with the desperate sting of a breath after being underwater.

More than anything, it feels like _home._

Waverly’s entire body melts around the power holding her up, her own fragility evident and welcomed as Nicole tightens her grip even more, one hand pulling at the small hairs behind Waverly’s neck, the other holding her by the waist, keeping her in place. Waverly’s lips open up, and Nicole accepts the invitation.

Waverly feels herself being pressed against the wall, a barely-there thing, almost as if her body is not her own. Nicole’s body presses up against her, tight stomach pressing against Waverly’s hardness with no hesitance, and she moans.

She has no idea how long it’s been when the kiss ends, her back still safely pressed against the wall, Nicole’s hands still demanding and firm and powerful, holding her up as if she weighted nothing.

“Hey, pretty girl,” smiles Nicole, dopey and soft even after the display of power.

Waverly blushes, hardness still very much evident, very much there.

“You’re going to be the death of me,” she tells Nicole, pleasantly and thankfully.

“Not if you kill me, first,” says Nicole, before kissing her again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As usual, thank you for the support and for the comments! It's always appreciated :)


	8. Chapter 8

“What?” asks Waverly, glass of wine in hand.

Nicole stares at her, as she has for the majority of their lunch, an entranced and puzzled look on her face. She tilts her head to the side, and Waverly instantly thinks of Labrador puppies.

“Nothing,” replies Nicole, grinning with childish glee.

Waverly exaggerates a pout, scrunching up her nose and squeezing her eyes. Nicole sighs, smiling as she gives in.

“I wish I was kissing you right now”.

Waverly feels her face heat up, the rest of her lunch forgotten.

“Well…” she starts with a smirk, “why aren’t you?”

Nicole grins before slowly standing up, downing the rest of her wine in one gulp before stalking around the dinner table. Waverly pretends not to notice, eyes focused on the ridiculous amount of food in front of her.

“Hey, pretty lady,” says Nicole, tilting an invisible hat.

Waverly looks up into playful brown eyes, breathing heavier as she feels Nicole’s fingers hovering over her hair, calmly brushing it away to reveal her neck. Her thumb presses against the sensible skin, short nail slowly scratching up and down against her pulse point. Waverly lets out something between a hum and a sigh, eyes closing.

“Come here often?” asks Nicole, voice still playful as her long fingers pull ever so softly on Waverly’s earlobe.

“As often as you want,” Waverly returns, voice breathy.

She opens her eyes as Nicole crouches by her side, the height difference making her only slightly shorter than Waverly. She pushes her chair with little effort, forcing Waverly to face her.

One hand settles on her knee, the other on her chin, tilting it up.

“You’re so beautiful, you know,” says Nicole, voice now velvety and low.

Waverly unconsciously spreads her thighs ever so slightly, making space for the officer to fully settle between them. She looks down at Nicole, mind and heart racing.

“Thank you,” Waverly lets out, almost a whisper. She leans down slowly, a raging difference from her earlier desperation.

The kiss is gentler, slower, Nicole’s fingers lazily brushing against Waverly’s cheek, Waverly’s hair, Waverly’s neck. Somehow, languid and deliberate as it is, the air around them feels charged, electric. Waverly feels an irritatingly familiar feeling settling on her lower belly, heartbeat so quick she feels lightheaded.

Nicole pulls away with a hum.

“I should let you eat,” she says, lips glistening and swollen.

Waverly can’t take her eyes off them.

“I’m done”.

It feels like they’re communicating, Waverly thinks in wonder, no words spoken as they simply stare at each other, eyes roaming freely. The electricity is still there, like static, tense and heavy around them.

Nicole stands upright without another word, extending her hand for Waverly, the other reaching for the half-full bottle of wine. Waverly gets up from the chair, holding Nicole’s offered hand as if it’s a life line, mindlessly following the taller woman as she moves over to the couch. She lets go of the bottle, placing it over the coffee table.

The silence around them is heavy with expectation, and Waverly wonders if she should say something. Nicole beats her to it, settling down on the couch’s arm legs spread in invitation for Waverly.

“I was afraid I was… reading you wrong,” says Nicole as Waverly stalks forward, thighs pressing against leather, Nicole’s calves brushing against her legs. “That you only wanted me as a friend,” Nicole admits, vulnerable.

Waverly listens with admiration. The woman wears her heart on her sleeve, Waverly has learned, ever honest, ever open. She could learn from her.

“What happened to ‘I’ll take what I can get’, Officer?” asks Waverly, lips pulled up in a small smile.

Nicole chuckles, fingers slowly tangling with Waverly’s. They’re so close she can smell Nicole’s breath, the alcohol in it less intoxicating than the feeling of her skin pressing against Waverly.

“I would,” Nicole admits, “but I was hoping I wouldn’t have to”.

Waverly kisses her softly, little more than a peck on her lips.

“You scare me,” she repeats her own words from earlier.

Nicole smiles knowingly.

“But I’ve… I’ve realized the things that scared me the most have always been the things I really wanted”.

Nicole’s hands settle on Waverly’s hips, grounding and comforting.

“Are you… scared, too?” asks Waverly, afraid of the answer.

“Terrified,” Nicole smiles until her dimples show, and Waverly’s heart seems intent on sending her to a hospital. “You’re the prettiest, smartest girl I’ve ever met, Waverly Earp”.

When Waverly kisses her again, she’s reminded of sunflowers, bumblebees and raw sugarcane.

***

When Waverly pushes forward, Nicole allows herself to fall back on the couch, Waverly following like a magnet.

When Waverly groans, Nicole kisses her harder, as searching, intent on achieving _something._

When Waverly feels herself, embarrassingly hard and ready pressing against her own cotton underwear, Nicole only moans in return before grabbing Waverly’s ass, pulling her closer.

Waverly thinks about belonging, deserving, giving.

She thinks, amazed, _so that’s what it’s like, being with someone who doesn’t care. With someone who’s willing to give._

She wonders how she’d ever thought it’d be enough to just settle.

***

Waverly pulls herself up, hovering atop the taller woman.

She feels uncomfortable, desperately keeping herself from grinding against Nicole’s stomach.

“Are you okay?” asks Nicole, concern clear on her features.

“Yeah, yeah… I just…” Waverly lets out something between a chuckle and a sigh, “lots going on”.

Nicole nods in understanding, watching with amusement as Waverly detangles their bodies before scooting over on the couch to make space for her to sit down. Nicole faces her, one leg crossed, arm over the headrest and around Waverly’s back.

“You sure you’re alright?” she asks again, less concerned this time.

“You’re… good at that,” Waverly puffs out, hands frantically trying to tame her own unruly hair.

Nicole laughs.

“At kissing?” she asks.

Waverly can still feel the sting on her lower lip, the shallow indent of Nicole’s teeth.

“Stop laughing at me,” she pouts, looking over at the redhead.

Nicole, to her credit, stops laughing, hands up in surrender.

“You’re too cute,” she says, an adoring smile on her lips.

“I thought I was the prettiest girl you’d ever met,” replies Waverly, playful as she crosses her arms in faux anger.

“Well…” Nicole drawls with a smirk, “you’re the cutest, prettiest, hottest girl I’ve ever met, miss Earp,” she says, each compliment accompanied by a light tap of Nicole’s finger against Waverly’s nose.

“Hot, uh?” asks Waverly, head resting against Nicole’s forearm as she imitates the woman’s position.

“As hell,” Nicole adds, eyes glimmering.

Nicole initiates the kiss this time, strong hand wrapping around the back of Waverly’s neck, soft lips insistent and irresistible.

***

“Don’t you have to work?” asks Waverly lazily, fingers slowly tracing random patterns on Nicole’s forearm, back against the woman’s chest. The couch feels awkward under them, sweaty and all too warm, but neither seems to mind.

“Not today,” Nicole replies, cheeks nuzzling against Waverly’s hair, “only tomorrow night”.

“Good,” Waverly hums in response.

Calamity Jane approaches them, considering for a second before hopping on Waverly’s extended legs and settling on her lap. Waverly squeals in delight and Nicole laughs.

“She loves you already,” she says, “I thought she’d be jealous, now”.

Waverly chuckles.

“She gets jealous?”

“Sometimes. She used to like my ex, but when we started dating she hated her. Their relationship never recovered”.

Waverly feels a stupid, unwarranted sting on her heart.

“Speaking of which,” Nicole adds thoughtfully, her warm breath a living thing over Waverly’s skin. “I never did ask about things with… Chad, was it?”

Waverly isn’t sure if she’s only joking, but corrects her anyways.

“Champ,” she says, the name already a half-thing, hollow of meaning.

“Champ,” Nicole repeats with a breath, “did he… did he take it okay?” she asks, testing the waters.

“What if he’s the one who broke up with me?” asks Waverly, a hint of a smile on her voice.

“Then he’s even dumber than what I thought,” Nicole says, serious.

Waverly chuckles, fingers playing with Calamity’s fur. The cat purrs.

“It went… great, actually. He was really mature about it,” Waverly says.

She’d avoided talking about the break-up with Nicole, although she wasn’t sure why. It felt too sensitive, too close for comfort, her reasoning behind it.

“I’m glad,” says Nicole, not a hint of spite on her voice.

Waverly settles further into her chest, sighing with weariness and comfort and relief.

“Wynonna threw a party for me,” she says, her anger forgotten, “when I broke up with him. Invited my friends and everything,” she laughs at the memory.

Nicole laughs with her.

“Was he that bad?” asks Nicole, index finger drawing lazy circles over Waverly’s clothed hip.

Waverly considers the question for a moment.

“Sometimes, I guess,” she says, threading on dangerous waters, murky and bitter. “He never really… _got_ the whole… trans thing,” she settles on finally. “But he wasn’t too bad, really, just childish”.

Nicole huffs with indignation.

“How can a boyfriend not _get_ something like that?” she asks, and Waverly’s stomach sinks.

“What do you mean?” she asks, turning to face Nicole.

“I mean,” Nicole gives her a lopsided smile, “I’d never date someone who didn’t _get_ me being a police officer”.

Waverly frowns.

“Well I’m sorry if I’m not as-“

“Waves, Waves,” Nicole pleads, calm and temperate, “I’m not… it’s not about you. I’m just saying, it’s a big part of you, he shouldn’t just… not _get_ it. He should’ve cherished it”.

Waverly settles back against Nicole, thoughtful. The air around them is placid, warm. Calamity purrs louder, and Waverly pets her once more.

“I’m not sure even I cherish that,” she says, more to herself than to the woman sitting behind her.

She feels Nicole shrug behind her.

“That’s alright. I hope you do, one day”.

Waverly hopes so, too, but says nothing in return, deciding on breathing in the smell of vanilla and leather and lit candles and bask on the warmth of the late afternoon sun.

***

As they eat dinner, Nicole seems intent on asking something. Her black eye is still quite swollen, but her nose seems otherwise unscathed now, little more than a little redness on it’s bridge.

“Do you…” she starts, pondering.

Waverly stops eating, but Nicole says nothing more.

“Yeah?”

“Don’t be mad,” Nicole says, “but don’t you think you should… talk to Wynonna?”

Waverly sighs, fork resting against her plate.

“I don’t want to talk to her”.

Nicole hums in response, nodding to herself.

“We were… moving. Her and I”.

Nicole looks up in surprise.

“Moving?”

“Still in Purgatory. To the Homestead,” Waverly explains, “it’s where we grew up. We lived there until my father and Willa were… you know”.

Nicole nods.

“It’s old, run down. We went there the other day to check it out,” Waverly sighs, “now I just don’t know what I’m doing anymore”.

“What do you mean?” asks Nicole, head tilted to the side.

“I was excited about moving with Wynonna… I mean, we own the place really, and we’re both working so it made sense,” she says, shaking her head, “but after that, I can’t… I can’t think about trusting her again”.

Nicole slowly caressed the back of Waverly’s hand, an understanding smile making it’s way through her face.

“And she punched you!” Waverly groans.

Nicole laughs heartily.

“I mean… That’s Wynonna, Waves,” she says, “she’s only been at the station for a few weeks and half the cops are scared of her already,” Waverly smiles with unwarranted fondness at the comment, “I understand why she was angry. It wasn’t my place, nor hers. But she loves you, she really does. Sometimes, that’s all you can ask for”.

Waverly groans louder.

“Why are you always so levelheaded,” she says, frustrated.

Nicole laughs, bringing Waverly’s hand up to her lips and kissing her knuckles.

“With age comes wisdom”.

“You’re twenty five, Nicole,” Waverly deadpans.

Nicole only laughs more, and Waverly admires the lightness of it. Nicole doesn’t take up her space, she thinks to herself, she molds herself against Waverly, like clay against Waverly’s hands.

***

“Can you read for me?” Waverly asks, blushing with the childish request.

Nicole smiles broadly.

“Of course! I’ll just shower and you can get yourself settled, okay?” she says, cheerfulness undeniable in her tone.

Waverly lays down on the bed (Nicole had made it when Waverly wasn’t looking, the tight corners almost ridiculously perfect), smiling as Calamity Jane lets out a small sigh, resting her head against Waverly’s side. She picks up her phone, quickly going through her notifications. She ignores Wynonna’s ten messages and eight missed calls.

Robert’d sent her a message, asking her where she was. Wynonna had gone over to his place, he says. She replies, explaining where she is, telling him she’ll later tell him why she’d fought with Wynonna. There are emails from her professors about the upcoming semester, but nothing important, and she sighs in relief.

When she finishes going through them, she places the phone on the bedside table, maneuvering herself as not to wake up Calamity, who’s already snoring on her side.

She tries to read the rest of the titles sitting by Nicole’s reading chair, spotting a few classics she’s already read. She wonders if Nicole likes reading as much as she does.

Her thoughts are interrupted by the bathroom door opening. She looks, startled, and her lower belly instantly turns into a warm puddle.

Nicole stands by the doorframe, hair still dripping wet as she fiercely rubs a towel against it. She wears loose basketball shorts and a sleeveless Raptors shirt, biceps all too noticeable as she fusses up her own hair. 

Waverly lets out a sound, embarrassingly close to choking.

Nicole looks up, distracted, before winking with a grin, effectively sending Waverly straight to hell.

Or heaven, maybe. She’s not sure she cares.

“Uh,” she starts, her brain working at frankly embarrassing speeds, “hey”.

“Hey, pretty girl,” says Nicole, no malice in her tone.

Waverly finds she’s rather fond of the pet name, heart warming in delight.

Her own face warms, too, though less delight is involved. The warm puddle in her belly churns, simmering with need.

“Come here,” she gestures to Nicole, throat dry.

Nicole obediently complies, throwing the used towel on the bathroom sink before walking to her side of the bed.

_Her side? What are we, married?_

Nicole lays down, and Waverly moves to face her.

“What?” she asks after a long moment, static threatening around them.

Waverly moves forward, lips capturing Nicole’s with almost unnatural dexterity. She does not like to think people have a place in this world, not too keen on the idea of allowing herself to be defined, contained.

If she had to choose, though, she’d say her place was here, Nicole’s gentle hands on her hip, on her face, Nicole’s thigh pressed between her legs, mouth ravaged and taken and overwhelmed.

It is only when she feels herself grinding against Nicole’s thigh, tongue sucked between her teeth, hardness unrelenting and obvious, that she pulls away.

“I… I can’t”.

Nicole looks at her, and Waverly briefly delights in her red, swollen lips.

“Is everything alright?” asks Nicole, worried.

Waverly thinks about her answer, mind frustratingly hazy with arousal.

“I’m not… ready,” she says, hoping Nicole understands.

She does, of course.

“It’s okay, Waves,” Nicole says, “you keep time on me”.

Waverly smiles, something between embarrassment and relief.

“We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to,” Nicole reassures her further, hand returning to her hip.

Her thumb caresses the skin just under Waverly’s shirt.

Waverly wonders if Nicole can feel her cock, still pressed against her thigh, if ever so lightly. She wonders if Nicole is even aware of it.

She looks down, self-conscious, sighing with relief when she notices it doesn’t seem to be making much of a bulge.

“Nicole?” she starts, unsure what she’s even asking.

“Yeah, pretty girl?”

Waverly looks up into brown eyes, pinewood, strong and solid and tenacious.

“I… Can you…” she starts, huffing in frustration, “does _it_ …”

Nicole, attentive and sweet and _perfect,_ seems to know exactly what she wants to ask.

She licks her swollen lips, Waverly’s eyes following without command.

“You know,” Nicole starts, “it’s so lovely, feeling how hot I get you”.

Waverly lets out a whine.

“Don’t be embarrassed, Waves,” says Nicole, serious, before leaning further, so close to Waverly’s ear she feels goosebumps rising on her skin, “I’m wet, too”.

Waverly is pretty sure she is dead in a ditch somewhere, hallucinating as her body decomposes.

***

It is only much later, as Nicole Haught reads her _To Kill a Mockingbird_ an orange cat curled up between the two, that Waverly allows herself to think about where she is.

She thinks of wild gaillardias, of belt buckles against soft, childish skin.

She thinks of skirts, and murder, and courage.

She thinks of the mother she never met, of the father she wishes she hadn’t, and of the sister who loves her more than she loves life itself.

As Nicole Haught caresses her hair, long fingers carefully untangling the strands, as warm cherry wine soaks her bones, Waverly Earp knows, despite everything, despite nothing, that she will be okay.

She’s fought more than most people have to be who she is, she tells herself. She will not give it up, not now.

***

Seconds before drifting away to a dream of peaches and friends and swimming, Waverly decides to forgive, if only for her own sake.

She decides she will return to her wild galliardias, twelve years later, maybe plant some friends for them.

If nothing else, Waverly Earp is brave, she realizes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thank you for reading, commenting, and supporting. It means the world to me.  
> Also, we're approaching the end of this little story, which is a little bittersweet.  
> Hopefully I'll start a new one soon :)


	9. Chapter 9

Waverly sits on the dusty swing on the Homestead’s front porch, the metallic squealing of the old chains only serving to worsen the pounding in her head.

Wynonna is late.

It’d been a full week since she last saw her. Nicole’s eye was almost back to normal, and though Waverly missed the rugged bad boy look, she preferred Nicole happy and healthy and not punched in the eye by her own sister.

She’d left her house, too, deciding it best to move to Chrissy’s for the time being.

(It was hard to get things done, and harder to keep her hands to herself while sharing Nicole’s home. Nicole was not particularly thrilled by her leaving, but, as always, she understood).

(Waverly Earp was not too used to being understood, which meant she’d taken great care in explaining herself.

Nicole had laughed, kissed her knuckles and told her it was okay).

An old blue and white truck approaches at most definitely an illegal speed, hitting the brakes as dust kicks up behind it. Wynonna jumps out, a take-out box in hand, kicking shut the door before all but running to the front porch.

“You’re late,” greets Waverly, pulling her light coat tighter around her body. She doesn’t bother getting up from the swing.

Wynonna ascends the step with a sheepish smile, the take-out box maybe a peace offering, maybe a shied.

“I brought donuts,” she says, unusually coy, “they’re vegan”.

Waverly raises one eyebrow in return, lips pursed.

Wynonna stares for a moment, unsure, before slowly sitting down beside her, presenting the box of donuts as one might present a wedding ring. Waverly grabs one with a huff.

“You punched Nicole,” she states, all business.

Wynonna lets out a long breath beside her.

“I’m… I’m sorry, baby girl”.

“It’s not me you should be apologizing to,” replies Waverly before taking a bite.

A goose honks somewhere not far from them.

“Ugh,” Wynonna sighs, “you want me to apologize to Officer Nosy, I will, okay?” she says, placing the box on the ground in front of them. “Just as long as you don’t hate me anymore”.

Wynonna, contradicted, disgruntled and abandoned (as she’d put it herself) looked dissimilar to the image Waverly had of her, though not far from the teenager who used to smoke Carlton’s and drink cheap beer on the sidewalk.

“I don’t hate you,” Waverly replies, voice quiet.

“I’m sorry, Waves,” Wynonna repeats, “I really am. About everything,” she sighs, “I just… Sometimes, I forget you’re not that stupid little eight year old with those dumb Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles shirts daddy used to get you”.

“I don’t,” says Waverly, voice icy, “I never do”.

Wynonna sighs, full and dry and tired.

“I remember you… Coming home, that day. I chose your name, you know?” she asks, “your old one, anyways,” she adds with a chuckle, “explains why you hated it, uh?”.

“And mama was so happy, I remember that too,” Wynonna continues, going quiet for a moment, thoughtful, “but daddy never was. He seemed… angry. And I remember thinking, _god, you have to protect this kid,”_ she lets out a huff, something between a snort and a sigh. “But God never did like us Earps much, so I guess I had to take his mantel”.

The sun is setting, easy and natural and right, and the fence around the property casts strange, moving shadows on the uncut grass. The Homestead always felt alive, somehow, as if the house itself intended on swallowing them whole.

It did, in a way.

“I didn’t get it, at first. But then Willa told me. He told her, the first day. That you weren’t his,” Wynonna says, solemn, “I don’t even know how he knew, really,” she runs her hands through her hair, slow and deliberate. “He was so spiteful after that. Couldn’t even handle your crying,” Wynonna swallows, “I learned how to make you your formula and everything,” she smiles, sad and defeated, “after mama died. Sometimes I wonder if-”.

Wynonna doesn’t dare finish, but Waverly knows what she means.

Sometimes she wonders, too, if he would’ve just left her to die. Give her away, if he was feeling generous.

“You must’ve hated me,” says Waverly quietly, eyes cast downwards.

Wynonna laughs.

“I hated him, not you,” she says, “how can a human being just… fucking ignore a damn baby, you know? And Willa didn’t give a shit, either. She’d just stare at you when you cried”.

Waverly knows all of that already, at least in part, but it hurts to hear just how much of a bother your existence was to your own family.

“And then mama died and I just… I don’t know. It never felt right,” she says with a wince, “and then he died, too, and there was no need anymore. To tell you. For you to suffer”.

And Waverly knows, truly and deeply, that Wynonna had her reasons. Waverly understands.

Understanding is such a funny little thing, she thinks in wonder. Waverly can understand why a lion hunts a gazelle, but she’d never pull the trigger. Understanding sits somewhere between innocence, stubbornness and repetition, never quite touching.

“I deserved to know who my father was,” says Waverly, grasping for stubbornness in an empty gesture, eyes glimmering with unshed tears.

Wynonna sighs.

“You did,” she agrees simply.

Waverly admires the ease in Wynonna’s acceptance.

“When I saw I wasn’t his…” Waverly starts, unsure, “for a second I was just… I thought maybe my real father was a good man, you know? Not… Someone like that man. Like Julian”.

The name is foreign on her tongue, and it tastes acrid, dead.

The goose honks again, louder, closer, and it’s followed by others. A family of geese, maybe.

“I thought being someone else’s could mean I’m… good, in a way. But Julian was… just as bad, I guess,” Waverly stares at her own hands, nails digging in her palms. “He killed Willa, too. She was just a kid”.

Wynonna only nods along, allowing Waverly to conquer herself.

“It probably doesn’t mean much,” says Wynonna, breaking the silence, “but I think,” she stops, taking a deep breath, “if blood meant anything, we’d both have killed each other by now,” she lets out a dark chuckle. “I don’t love you because we have the same father or the same mother,” she looks Waverly in the eye, a small smile playing on her lips, “I love you because you’re my lighthouse. You’re the one person I can trust to show me the light, no matter what,” Waverly holds Wynonna’s hand tightly, afraid of letting go. “We’re the Earps, baby girl. We’re the family”.

When they hug, Waverly realizes how much she’d missed the stupid smell of booze and grapefruit conditioner.

“Even when we die, we’ll be buried together, baby girl,” Wynonna whispers in her er, “no dumb case file can tell me who my sister is”.

Waverly allows herself to cry, and the salt water tastes holy.

Waverly christens herself once again.

***

She takes her old Rubik’s cube to bed with her that night, slowly remembering the movements and sequences Willa had taught her when she was a child. The hours she spent with her sister trying to learn all she could about layers and corners and centers were probably the very best she’d spent with her.

Willa had been curiously patient that day, and when Waverly managed to get it done by herself, she hugged her.

Waverly noticed, with grim finality, that it was the first (and last) hug Willa had ever given her.

When she falls asleep, the cube is still on it’s first layer, but she’s trying.

***

“Lord almighty,” groans John Henry Holliday, hat in his hand in what looks an awful lot like surrender.

“That’s it?” adds Nicole, helpfully.

Both stare at Wynonna and Waverly as if they just announced they were moving to an old dump site by the side of the road. The Homestead watches over them, far less ominous than what Waverly remembered. The morning sun aloud little shadows to invade their grounds.

“It’s free,” Wynonna explains with a shrug and a dismissive wave.

“It’s got… potential,” says Nicole, although it sound an awful lot like a question.

Waverly had forced Wynonna to apologize the day before, with a helpful serving of explanations and maybe a tad bit of begging (Waverly was human, after all, and was still very much enraged at her sister for punching her… Nicole). Nicole seemed more unnerved at the sight of an apologetic Wynonna than anything else, repeating it was okay about a hundred times before Waverly told her, sweetly and with a lot of care, to shut up. It was a strange ordeal, really, and Waverly allowed herself to have fun with it.

She treated both women to lunch afterwards, of course, though only after squeezing them in a conciliatory group hug.

(Through which Wynonna groaned and gagged, and Nicole seemed to enter an alternate space and time continuum, utterly unresponsive until it was over). 

After a few minutes, Nicole had congratulated Wynonna on a punch well thrown, and the tension dissipated quickly.

Now, as Waverly stared at her sister’s not-quite-boyfriend, not-quite-friend, and at her own not-quite-girlfriend, not-quite-friend as they examined the rotten foundation of what would, hopefully, become their house again, she holds her sister’s hand, amazed at the appropriateness of it all.

God’s timing was rarely this appropriate.

She remembers the Rubik’s cube, by now half-way done, and thinks of how, once you make sense of it’s pieces, the final result is only a matter of time.

***

“You guys do know I’m not… a handyman, right?” asks Nicole as she pokes on the exposed pipes of the kitchen sink with an old wooden spoon she had found lying on the ground.

“It’s called assessing the damage, Haught-sauce,” replies Wynonna, feet propped up on the kitchen table as she rifles through numerous Tinder profiles. “Know anything about pipes, Doc?” Wynonna yells out, the sound echoing through the old walls.

Waverly always disliked the nickname John Henry had. Very self-aggrandizing, if she said so herself.

“Oh, I know a couple of ‘em,” his voice booms in return, a raspy chuckle following.

Wynonna laughs as Nicole stares up at Waverly, utterly horrified.

The man returns to the kitchen, winking at Wynonna before looking at the pipes with what seems to be just as little expertise as Nicole, who’s still bravely brandishing the spoon as if it can somehow help her figure out if the water’s still running.

“We need a contractor, Wynonna,” sighs Waverly, resting her lower back against the dusty counter.

She feels Nicole approaching her, slow and subtle, as one might feel the heat of a nearing fire. They gravitate towards each other, Waverly thinks to herself, binary stars, as essential to each other’s existence as capable of each other’s destruction. At least for now.

Nicole settles, hand coming to rest shyly on Waverly’s lower back. Waverly allows her head to lull to the side, cheek resting against bony, muscly shoulders. She sighs, content.

“Contractors are for losers, baby girl,” Wynonna returns, still focused on the phone in her hand, “we don’t need them when we got this fine piece of man meat and this-” she stops, eyeing Nicole for a second, “uh. Gay narc on the case”.

Nicole seems absurdly unaffected by the comment, the polar opposite of Waverly’s offended shriek. John Henry’s moustache twitches in what could either be a smile or a frown. Most of his facial expressions were anybody’s guess, really.

“Well your… man meat doesn’t seem to know what he’s doing, and Nicole’s not Bob the Builder,” says Waverly, infuriated by both Nicole’s and John Henry’s neutrality with the situation. And with all of Wynonna’s never-ending antics.

“I can help, really,” says Nicole, picking the worst time to speak up, “I helped out building some houses back in college. Mostly roofing, though,” she shrugs, as if the image of her in construction wear building a house under the warm spring sun wasn’t about to stick itself in Waverly’s brain for the next 3 to 5 business days.

(It stayed for longer than that, if she was being honest).

Waverly splutters, face warm.

“You what?” she asks, ignoring the knowing grin Wynonna throws her way.

Nicole shrugs.

“There was this program to help with infrastructure in poor neighborhoods around town. I worked with them for a year, I think”.

Wynonna makes a sound of surprise.

“Careful there, Jessica Rabbit. A little more of that sweet talking about poor people and non-profits and orphans and Waverly might bang ya right here,” she says with a shit-eating grin.

Waverly’s face goes from embarrassingly red to pale in a second. She steals the wooden spoon from Nicole’s hand, chucking it at her sister’s face.

Wynonna dodges it, cackling.

Nicole, god bless her soul, either ignores the comment or is too mortified to acknowledge it.

“Uh,” she clears her throat, “anyways, I have some experience,” as Waverly starts to protest, she squeezes her grip against her back comfortingly, “and I’d like to help, seriously. It could be fun,” she smiles, a sweet kind of hope in her eyes.

John Henry, now standing behind Wynonna, slowly rolls up a cigarette.

“I, for one, have very little experience on the trade,” he starts with a drawl, “but I’m up for it, as well. Miss Haught here seems like a fine companion, too,” he says with a twinkle in his eye.

Why is everyone just readily agreeing to making this renovation a hundred times harder than what it needs to be?

Waverly groans, a plea for the hiring of an actual contractor stuck in her throat when she thinks about the endless possibilities of watching Nicole work.

“Can we at least hire some people for the pipes and electricity?” she compromises.

Wynonna whoops in return, hands raised in the air. John Henry steals her phone, unlit cigarette hanging under his moustache as he takes on the task of rejecting virtually all available people on Tinder.

Nicole and Waverly watch with amazement as the scene unfolds.

“This fella seems nice,” he says after a moment, showing Wynonna someone’s profile. She considers for a moment before shaking her head, a look of mild disgust on her face. He shrugs.

“I thought you two were dating,” says Nicole, clueless and innocent, hand caressing Waverly’s back in slow circles.

Wynonna and John Henry share a look before chuckling.

He returns to the phone.

***

“How the hell do we even start?” huffs Waverly, ice cream bowl in hand as she watches Wynonna and Stephen play a frightfully fierce round of Mortal Kombat in Robert’s apartment.

Her relationship with her sister was still wobbly, strange, but Wynonna was trying, more than she’d ever see her try, and for that she was thankful.

“By having a contractor,” Robert mumbles, distracted. He wears only ripped jeans and a fur coat, bare chest exposed, and Waverly wonders how Stephen puts up with his fashion choices.

“Someone thinks it’d be more fun to just figure it out as we go,” grumbles Waverly, poking at the ice cream with her spoon.

Wynonna clicks her tongue.

“Stop whining so much!” she retorts, eyes focused on the game, “Raggedy Ann is going to have the time of her life building you your love nest,” she mocks.

“Her name is Nicole, Wynonna,” Waverly bites back.

“Met the in-laws already, uh?” Robert asks Wynonna, suddenly interested.

“Can we please go back to the other subject?” asks Waverly, irritated, “you know, impossible house building?”

“First of all, Waves, we already got it looked at, we know what we need, we’ll just do the fun part,” Wynonna repeats for the tenth time in a week, “second, Bobo,” she mocks, “Waverly is currently deciding if she wants a spring or summer wedding”.

Robert laughs, raspy and charming as usual. Stephen pecks him on the cheek.

“An the fun part is what, exactly?” asks Waverly, rolling her eyes.

“Smashing stuff. Throwing on some wallpaper. Fixing holes or whatever,” Wynonna explains halfheartedly, eyes still focused on the game.

Waverly admires her sister unrealistic belief that all things in life can be fixed with the smashing of some things and the precarious closure of holes.

***

“Excuse me,” Waverly hears from behind her, quickly turning around.

Nicole stands by the doorway to what will become Waverly’s room, ladder under her right arm. She wears a well-worn t-shirt with some mountain climbing logo Waverly does not recognize and dirty, loose jeans, covered in paint and pulled up to her ankles.

Waverly lets out a breath.

“Hey,” she says with a smile.

Nicole enters the room, carrying the ladder as if it weights nothing. She places it under the sizeable hole on the ceiling, spreading it’s legs before facing Waverly.

“Hey there,” she grins.

“Is that gonna be a lot of work?” asks Waverly with a coy look.

Nicole hums, looking up.

“Probably not, just some coverage,” she motions to the variety of mysterious instruments she’s brought with her, “the actual roof if intact,” she says, an afterthought, “which makes very little sense, but who am I to argue with the roof guy”.

Waverly grins.

“I thought you were the roof guy,” she says, index finger deftly pulling on Nicole’s belt loop.

Nicole allows herself to be pulled until their chests touch when they inhale.

“I’m the roof assistant at best,” Nicole remarks, dimples delighting Waverly.

Waverly settles her hands on enticing hips, chin tilted up to look into caramel.

“You’re never going to live here if you keep this up, Waverly Earp,” Nicole grins.

The way she says her name, the way she delights in reminding Waverly of who she is, makes Waverly think of crystal clear ponds reflecting the setting sun.

“And why is that, Mrs. Roof Assistant?” asks Waverly, coy and innocent.

Nicole kisses Waverly as if the meaning of life hid in the roof of her mouth.

Waverly kisses back, caring very little about the world, it’s meaning, or the dusty and decrepit tomb this house has become.

***

Renovating is stressful, although not as much as Waverly imagines it would be if one of their bricklayers, roof assistants and all around helpful sweetheart was not Nicole Haught, who’d take on every task she was asked to do as if it was little more than a simple favor, who’d kiss Waverly with fierce desperation at every opportunity, who looked terribly attractive in dirty jeans and old T-shirts and a sheen of sweat on pale skin.

Wynonna helps, a surprising amount, really, though most of her undertakings seem to involve sledgehammers and other means of destruction.

John Henry rolls cigarettes and smokes, mostly, but Waverly doesn’t mind, not really.

She’s happy, she sighs to herself, truly and deeply and completely.

As the Homestead recreates itself amongst graves and creeping shadows, Waverly plants a garden in the backyard, and trusts her wild galliardas to cast away the sorrow.

***

On the second week of their renovation, she finds herself searching for Nicole around the property.

She’d arrived after lunch, having just finished a shift at the Station, and had promised she’s help Wynonna and John Henry with the setting of some windows, but had vanished while Waverly analyzed for the hundredth time if the rails in the front of the house were sitting straight. Wynonna kept repeating they were, but her and John Henry had quietly agreed they were crooked and would need some more work.

Random workers walked by, carrying an impossible variety of materials back and forth, and she asked every one of them if they had seem an extraordinarily tall redhead.

One of them points towards the corner of the immense fields, and Waverly jogs until she spots a cloud of smoke and familiar red hair.

“Stop smoking!” she practically yells.

Nicole, god bless her heart, throws the rolled up cigarette John Henry had handed her with such force on the ground it instantly goes out, stomping on it quickly as if it will hide her crime.

“Why are you here?” asks Waverly, mad that the smell of tobacco partially masks the smell of vanilla as she approaches the woman. “Why were you smoking? You only smoke when you’re-“

“Nervous,” says Nicole with a playful smile.

Waverly notices a bouquet of wild, yellow little flowers in her hand.

Her heart stops beating.

“I really have been having just… a lot of fun. With you. With everything,” Nicole starts, pushing away a rock with the bottom of her boot. “This is stupid,” she laughs at herself.

Waverly shakes her head, smile growing as Nicole hands her the flowers with a demure expression.

“Anyways, I guess we already… kinda… are,” Nicole starts again, “but-”.

Waverly huffs, frustrated.

She pulls out one of the flowers, pulling Nicole towards her.

“You’re so silly, Nicole Haught,” she says, carefully placing the flower over the woman’s ear, fixing her hair until it frames it. The yellow contrasts against pale skin and red hair and Waverly thinks of Mondrian’s compositions. “Would you be my girlfriend?”

Nicole’s eyes widen in mock shock.

“You stole my line you little devil!” she says, already laughing.

“You have to answer!” Waverly replies, laughing along.

“God, of course, Waves,” she says, eyes soft and glowing under the warm sunlight, “I would love to”.

Waverly smiles, full and bright and carefree.

She wonders if her wild galliardas can see her, can feel her.

She thinks they’d be proud.

***

“Nicole?” Waverly asks, straddling Nicole’s lower back as she slowly works out the knots in her back.

(Nicole had reminded her she didn’t need to, massages weren’t her thing, but Waverly liked to take care of her, so the police officer let her, especially after Waverly presented it as her one-week anniversary gift).

Nicole lets out a hum in response, too immersed to bother.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you something,” Waverly starts, the haunting presence of _someone_ a constant when she was in Nicole’s house.

“What is it, baby?” Nicole asks.

Waverly feels her ears going warm at the pet name. She closes her eyes for a second, grounding herself and attempting to calm her racing heart.

Nicole had never used it before, and hardly seems to notice the slip.

“The pictures downstairs,” Waverly starts, fingers steady as she fights against a knot over Nicole’s bare shoulder.

(The sight of a shirtless Nicole, even in a sports bra, made Waverly bothered and uncomfortable and _warm,_ and Nicole had sweetly and maybe a little cockily giggled in delight when she felt her bulge press against her naked back).

(Waverly had given up on tucking when at her house, the almost meaningless task all too bothersome for the ridiculous amount of time it actually lasted once Nicole’s lips were on her. When she told Nicole about it, a slip of the tongue, really, Nicole stared at her as if she was a shooting star, kissing her so lovingly, gratefully and gently Waverly wondered if Vishnu had blessed the woman).

Nicole hums in response once again.

“There’s a woman in a lot of them”.

Nicole opens her eyes, slow and deliberate.

“Jealous, baby?” she asks, playful. The pet name seems intentional this time, and Waverly turns into hot wax.

“Just… curious”.

Nicole gestures for Waverly to raise her hips, rolling under her until Waverly straddles her stomach.

She tries to ignore the softness, the power.

Mostly, she fails.

“That,” starts Nicole, “is my ex-girlfriend,” she says, slowly, “and current best friend”.

Waverly feels relief and worry, alleviation and annoyance.

“Ah”.

Nicole chuckles under her, the vibrations forcing her body to move as well.

“You really _are_ jealous, aren’t you?” Nicole asks with a smirk.

“Nope,” Waverly pops the ‘p’.

“I wouldn’t mind if you were still friends with Champ,” Nicole says, smiling still.

“We’re not… _not_ friends,” Waverly starts, then frowns, “and he’s not a super hot rock climbing lady”.

Nicole laughs, full of heart.

It annoys Waverly, if only a little bit.

She often reminded herself of just how different her and Nicole really were. It was almost a classical cliché, really, small and big towns, great, stable career and unsure student- _slash-_ barkeep. It was hard, some days, to figure out what Nicole saw in her, what she had in herself to bring out so much devotion, so much kindness, so much comprehension.

“You think Shae’s hot, uh? She’ll love that,” Nicole chuckles.

Waverly looks down in annoyance, and Nicole senses the change.

“Hey, baby, look,” she says, fingers slowly pulling Waverly’s chin until she looks her in the eye, “college. We dated for like, two months, realized we really were better off as friends,” Nicole explains with what resembles a shrug, “and that’s what we are. I love her to death, but you’re just…”

Waverly looks on, unsure what she means.

“You don’t have to worry, Waves,” Nicole says, words overflowing with honesty, “you’re all I want”.

Waverly sighs, feeling her heart folding onto itself.

“I just…” she starts, hesitant.

Nicole draws smooth circles on her thighs, calm and waiting. 

“What is this about, really?” asks Nicole. God damn her to hell with her sensitivity.

Waverly wonders if there’s a way out of the trap she just pushed herself into, but comes out with nothing.

Oh well.

“I just wonder,” she starts, closing her eyes, “why someone like _you_ ,” she sighs, “would be… would be with someone like me”.

Eyes still closed, she hears Nicole let out a long, drawn out breath.

“And what is someone like you _like?_ ” she asks, fingers still moving against Waverly’s skin.

Waverly chuckles dryly.

“Uh… A girl with a cursed family name, with a bartending job, with no college degree,” she feels her own voice betray her, shaking, “and with a dick”. The _coup de grace._

Nicole thinks very little before replying.

“Or a girl who’s overcome a long history of parental abuse, dealt with multiples deaths in her family and still came out strong as hell. A girl who’s more sure of who she is than half the people I’ve met, who’s working to support her dream of getting a History degree, who’s top of her class in all her classes _and_ who speaks three-hundred languages,” she says, tone flat as if the words coming out of her mouth were old, unmistakable truth.

Waverly opens her eyes, face warm.

Nicole stares back at her with that awful adoration, eyes shining in amazement.

Some kind of agreement is made, then, as non-verbal as it is. Waverly knows she still does not believe Nicole’s words, but she also knows Nicole will not rest until she does.

She thinks she might be able to, one day, if only Nicole Haught will guide her through it.

Nicole smirks, then, unabashed and wicked, pulling Waverly until her face rests only inches away from Nicole’s.

“And,” she starts, wetting her lips, “a girl whose dick I’ve been dying to get my mouth on ever since she singlehandedly started Shorty’s wet T-shirt competitions”.

***

It is a strange thing, being desired.

Waverly had always felt as if Champ only desired her half-heartedly, as if a mere distraction. It was inevitable, really, but very rarely something he wanted.

She realizes, as she tries very hard to process Nicole’s words as she lays in bed, alone for maybe the first night since she came back to Gus’ home, that she had never saw herself as an object of desire before.

She used to feel more like a Venus fly-trap, something enticing just up until the point one actually got too close.

It was foolish to pretend she didn’t know, of course, that Nicole had very unholy intentions with her. She was shockingly straightforward with her desire, perfectly grappling the line between respectfulness and unadulterated lust.

Nicole was patient, honest and considerate, but she knew when to be unapologetically sexual, and Waverly often found herself lost in the middle.

She was never too sure where she fit, especially in terms of her own sexuality.

It was a thing veiled in shame, in embarrassment.

So she shocks herself when, for the very first time, she touches herself without any of those things, Nicole’s words repeating themselves in her brain until they’re seared on her skull, an ever present reminder of her own power.

After she comes, instead of feeling guilt, she feels elation. She feels like warm sugar, melty and sweet and desired.

She texts Nicole.

Waverly Earp [1:07 A.M.]: I can’t stop thinking about what you said.

Nicole Haught [1:10 A.M.]: I said a lot of things J

Waverly snorts at the answer, still smiling as she types.

Waverly Earp [1:11 A.M]: Well then, smartass: how many of the things you said would have made me come just now?

Nicole starts typing, stops, starts again. Waverly laughs as she stops a second time, a full minute going by before she finally types again.

Nicole Haught [1:13 A.M.]: Welcome to the club. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve touched myself to the thought of you, pretty girl.

Even as her face warms and her hands tremble, Waverly thinks _well this is nice, isn’t it?_

She feels powerful, and she feels herself. When she goes to sleep, she has an unsurprising dream involving her and Nicole and various ungodly practices, and when she wakes up she feels nothing but pride, excitement and potentiality.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Your continuous support has been a delight, a joy and an inspiration.  
> Thank you very much for the comments and kudos and for reading, it really does mean a lot.  
> I'm not toooo sure the last chapter will actually be the last, and I'm already cooking up another little story so do not fret too much.  
> Thank you :)


	10. Chapter 10

Waverly finished the Rubik’s cube with trembling hands.

She places the cube on her dresser with silly, childish pride.

“Willa knew how to do those,” says Gus when she enters the room to tell Waverly and Wynonna dinner’s ready.

“She taught me,” Waverly answers.

Gus looks surprised before swallowing it down and leaving the room.

***

“You picked a good one,” Wynonna mumbles as they watch Nicole and John Henry carry wooden planks inside the Homestead.

Waverly stares at her, surprised. Wynonna sips on her coffee quietly, legs dangling from the swing in the front porch.

It no longer squeaked.

“Did I?” she asks her sister, eyebrows raised.

Wynonna shrugs, blowing on the steaming cup.

“You have a terrible dating history,” she says.

Waverly groans.

“I’m serious, though. You guys seem… real close,” Wynonna says, staring at her cup.

“We’re dating, Wy,” Waverly tells her, unsure of how aware her sister was of their relationship.

“I’m not dumb, Waves, I know,” she says, rolling her eyes, “she won’t stop going on about you at the station. It’s annoying, really,” Wynonna says, and through her faux annoyance Waverly sees the hint of a smile playing on her lips.

“She treats you right, yeah? Respectfully?” Wynonna asks, looking up at Waverly with unfamiliar softness.

Waverly smiles.

“She makes me feel like a princess,” Waverly says.

Wynonna gags.

***

“I used to hate reading,” Nicole says as she rifles through her small collection of books. Waverly lies in bed, Calamity Jane curled up on her stomach. The streetlight’s shine in through the window, casting an eerie orange glow over Nicole’s hunched form. Waverly thinks of candles.

“Really?” asks Waverly, slowly scratching Calamity in between her ears.

Nicole straightens up, checkered pajama pants dragging against the carpet as she moves towards the bed. She wears a police academy T-shirt, and Waverly appreciates the way the navy blue fabric compliments her red hair.

She holds Orwell’s _1984_ , settling in her spot in bed.

“Yeah, never had the patience, I guess,” she shrugs. “That’s why I used to like it when my mum read to me”.

Waverly allows her free hand to settle over Nicole’s thigh, softly caressing her through the thick fabric.

“You have an awful lot of books for someone who didn’t like reading,” Waverly remarks, curious.

Nicole clears her throat, and Waverly notices her cheeks reddening.

“You read a lot,” she says, as if it’s any explanation.

“Uh?” Waverly asks, huffing as Calamity Jane stands up on her stomach, stretching before settling between the two women.

“Well,” Nicole starts, face redder still, “you’re always reading. And I hadn’t even read the classics,” she says with a shrug.

Waverly always did wonder why the only books Nicole owned were major literary classics, with virtually no contemporary authors or unknown titles.

“Did you get yourself a bunch of books to impress me?” Waverly asks with a grin, heart beating faster.

Nicole splutters, Calamity looking up indignantly at her.

“Not to… impress you,” says Nicole, embarrassment clear as day, “just… you read Weber in German and I’d never even read Jane Austen. Had to up my game a little”.

Waverly laughs, chest warm and glowing.

“You’re the sweetest person in the world,” she tells Nicole, kissing her shoulder.

“You’re the smartest,” Nicole answers, genuine and filled with awe.

***

It had become almost a ritual, at least to Waverly.

Whenever she spent the night at Nicole’s, she’d read her something.

Most of the books she read Waverly already knew, had already read, but it was nice to relearn them through Nicole’s eyes.

Whenever they finished one, Nicole would ask Waverly about it, it’s context, it’s meaning, if Waverly liked it or not.

It was foreign and amazing, having someone so intent on sharing themselves with her, so open to accommodating the parts of her she was so used to ignore, to tone down.

She asks Nicole if they could maybe go rock climbing someday, and Nicole answers with ferocious glee that they absolutely will.

It’s nice, Waverly thinks to herself, to mold and to share and to grow together. If she is a river, Nicole is the sea, and Waverly was always fascinated by estuaries.

***

The full moon illuminates the freshly painted wood of the Homestead, casting a strange glimmer around the house. It looks otherworldly, unnatural.

Waverly hears the slow, constant pounding of a hammer, following the sound to the inside of the house. It’s otherwise quiet, and Waverly feels a strange calmness as she wonders around the place, the smell of paint and varnish tickling her nostrils.

She stops at the entrance to her future room. It smells of wood and vanilla. Nicole Haught brings down the hammer again and again, the last shelves being firmly hung on the wall. She wears only loose jeans and a sports bra, feet bare on the dusty floor. The moon’s borrowed light makes the light sheen of sweat on her back glimmer.

She looks tired, beautiful and eerie. Strong.

Waverly has never wanted someone more.

“It’s late,” she says. She hears her own voice against the silence, shaky and breathless.

Nicole doesn’t look startled. She gives the last shelf one last tug to check it’s security.

“I wanted to get your room done,” Nicole tells her, slowly turning around. She leans against the wall, biceps prominent as she crosses her arms in front of her chest. The hammer dangles from her fingers, and Waverly sets her eyes on the harmless object instead.

“You should rest,” Waverly says, throat dry and stomach warm.

She feels a hazy pool settling inside her, low and dangerous.

“I will,” Nicole answers. She tilts her head to the side, slow and lazy smile stretching on her face. Sweat slowly rolls down her neck, around her collarbones, over her cleavage.

Waverly swallows.

“You look pretty,” Nicole tells her, still smiling. Still smooth.

Waverly absentmindedly looks down, taking in her skirt, her Shorty’s uniform shirt, before looking up again. Nicole stares at her legs, unabashed.

“I missed you today,” Nicole says, the silence heavy and charged around them. Waverly’s heart begs for something, unnamed and untamed and just out of reach.

“I did, too,” Waverly tells her, glued to her spot. “Work was a nightmare”.

Nicole’s absence during her day had been like a small, insistent bruise on her ribs, undeniable and constant and unforgiving.

“You’re here now,” Nicole says with a strange tone, one Waverly recognizes a little too well.

With solemnity, Nicole pushes away from the wall, uncrossing her arms and allowing the hammer to fall onto the floor with a loud thud.

Waverly barely registers the sound.

“I was thinking about you all day,” Waverly says, unsure why. Her voice trembles, betraying her faux confidence.

“Yeah?” asks Nicole, slowly approaching as a predator might approach his cornered prey. “What were you thinking about?”

Waverly stops breathing as Nicole finally stops in front of her. She can see the sweat gathering on her brow, her heavy breathing and delectable mouth and dangerous eyes.

“About how much you want me,” Waverly tells her, honesty thickening her voice.

Nicole stares back, looking down with regal dominance at Waverly. She oozes confidence and calm, and Waverly wishes she could absorb it.

“About how much I want you,” Waverly adds.

Nicole says nothing, hand moving up until she runs her thumb against Waverly’s lower lip with entrancing power.

Waverly allows her mouth to fall open, the devious thumb sliding in if only just barely.

Waverly’s heart echoes the hammering she heard when she came in.

Nicole smiles then, sweet and soft and _her,_ and Waverly’s feels herself relax, melting under her hands.

Nicole’s eyes shine with hidden promises.

“Here?” she asks, always careful, always attentive.

Waverly nods, and Nicole’s thumb presses a little more forcefully on her lips.

“Are you sure, baby?” she asks, though Waverly knows she knows the answer.

Waverly’s answer comes in the shape of her own lips slowly encasing Nicole’s thumb. She sucks on it, allows her tongue to play with it, eyes open and provoking Nicole’s caramel stare.

Nicole’s lips are on hers in a heartbeat, hands pushing on her hips until her back hits the wall, and she allows herself to mollify under her.

Waverly closes her eyes tightly, Nicole’s mouth sucking on her pulse point, creating never-ending pathways on her neck. She feels herself, hard and ready and desperate, and whines as she feels Nicole’s hips pressing into her.

She doesn’t think before her hands are pressing on Nicole’s breasts, and the gasp she receives in reward delights her, unexpected and sweet. She tugs on the fabric, impatient, and Nicole lets out a small chuckle before releasing Waverly’s neck, pulling the bra off. Waverly stares with little shame, taking in every freckle, every curve. Her fingers move on their own, slowly tracing an uncharted path on the soft skin. Her thumb runs against Nicole’s nipples and she hears a delighted moan.

It encourages her, the atmosphere so heavy and electric she fears it. Her mouth envelops Nicole, tongue exploring and uncertain and determined as it rolls against her nipple. Nicole’s long fingers tangle themselves in Waverly’s hair, soft little sounds leaving her lips as Waverly slowly learns her way through her chest.

Nicole pulls at her shirt, insistent, until Waverly lets go with a pop, allowing the other woman to pull it over her head.

She feels herself blushing, redness reaching her chest, and then Nicole’s lips are on hers, reassuring and passionate and so very very hot.

Waverly’s arms are brought over her head, one strong hand holding them in place against the wall, and she feels vulnerable and exposed and _ready._ Nicole’s mouth is everywhere, swallowing her moans and leaving lavender marks in it’s wake.

“Jesus Christ,” Waverly hears herself say, voice so thick it’s foreign.

“Can I?” asks Nicole, hand hovering over the straps of Waverly’s bra. The lace does very little to cover her, and she almost laughs at the question.

She wiggles her hands, and Nicole allows her freedom. Waverly quickly undoes the offending clothing, discarding it somewhere behind Nicole.

Nicole’s eyes burn through her, scorching and intent.

“God, you’re so pretty,” she says, out of breath.

Her hands move with reverence, then, long fingers slowly running over soft skin as if Waverly’s bare chest was the single most precious thing in the universe. She traces the slight protrudance of her ribs, the soft lines adorning her tight stomach, the curve of her waist.

Waverly watches her hands moving against her, too entranced to breathe. Her back presses further against the wall, and she’s thankful for the support.

“If you want to stop,” Nicole tells her, eyes soft, “just tell me, okay, baby?”

“If you stop,” Waverly replies, her own hands coming to rest against Nicole’s, pressing them further into her sizzling skin, “I’ll murder you”.

Nicole chuckles, dark and low, before her calloused, strong hands are on Waverly’s breasts, squeezing and pulling and so very close to driving her insane.

She closes her eyes, too much for her to bear, and moans as she feels Nicole’s mouth against her, lightly biting on her nipple.

The sounds she lets out as Nicole shows her just how capable she is are sounds she had never heard herself make.

“Jesus, Nicole, I need you,” she whines, feeling calloused fingers tugging on her nipple as Nicole sucks on her other breast.

Her erection presses against fabric.

Nicole straightens up, hands settling on Waverly’s hips as their mouth meet once again.

“You’re sure, baby?” she asks again, and if Waverly didn’t find the care so thoughtful and endearing, she’d probably tell her to shut up and just _take_ her.

“I’ve never been so sure in my life,” she tells Nicole. Her heart beats impossibly faster as she gathers courage she wasn’t aware she had and grabs Nicole’s hand, gingerly bringing it with her until she presses her long fingers against the painful hardness pressing against her tight skirt. “Please,” Waverly breathes, desperate.

Nicole’s expression as she feels Waverly in her hands for the very first time, the undeniable evidence of her need and her want and her bravery is one Waverly would never forget. She looks as if she’s just seen god himself, in all his holy impossibility.

“You’re so ready for me, pretty girl,” Nicole whispers against Waverly’s neck, tongue licking against sensitive skin, and Waverly feels herself twitch in her hand. Nicole looks up, then, “anything you don’t want me to do, princess?” she asks, the almost fraternal nickname Robert had given her so dirty and delicious on her tongue. “Any words you don’t want me to use?”

Waverly feels so lucky, so seen, so full, she wonders if this is her last day on earth.

“No, no,” she replies, out of breath and out of her mind, “I just want…” she starts, but can’t bring herself to finish.

She wants everything Nicole is willing to give her.

Nicole only hums in response, a wicked little smile playing on her lips as she unbuttons Waverly’s skirt with deliberate care.

Waverly feels her knees trembling under the weight of their desire.

The skirt falls onto the floor with a deafening little sound, and Waverly has never felt more vulnerable. She slowly pulls of her shoes, stepping out of the fallen skirt, Nicole’s blazing gaze infinite and eternal.

Waverly feels her stomach fluttering, dizziness taking over her as she very forcefully is reminded she was only seen like this by one person before, and it was not all that pleasant.

Nicole was never one to allow Waverly to feel anything but wonder.

“You’re the most beautiful girl in the world,” says Nicole, then, hand softly grasping Waverly’s.

Her heart settles.

It is with reverence, desperation and something Waverly cannot quite place that Nicole looks at her before slowly descending to her knees.

Waverly looks down, shocked, as Nicole stares up at her, face a sheer reflection of awe and piety.

Waverly looks down, shocked, as Nicole slowly reaches for her hips, settling Waverly against the wall before moving forward.

Waverly looks down, shocked, as Nicole nuzzles against Waverly’s fabric-covered hardness, the small underwear doing very little to hide her from the woman’s hungry eyes. Her nose presses against her, her lips running around the outline of her cock. Her tongue leaves a trace of wetness as it presses against Waverly.

“May I?” Nicole asks her as one might ask God for a blessing.

Waverly only nods, mouth too dry for words.

Nicole pulls down her underwear swiftly and with care, and Waverly takes a deep breath.

No one had ever seen her, not like this. Not this way.

“Fuck,” Nicole gasps, and Waverly looks down, startled, “you’re so fucking perfect,” Nicole tells her, honest and clear and so _not_ what Waverly had come to expect for herself she has to hold back tears.

The sight of herself, hard and ready and almost angry in desperation this close to Nicole’s face is almost enough for Waverly to come right then.

As one might prepare themselves before feasting, Nicole takes a deep breath.

And then her tongue is slowly running up her length, a quiet hum vibrating through them.

Although inexperienced, Nicole quickly learns.

Her mouth envelops Waverly with care and desire, and Waverly lets out an embarrassingly loud moan and she feels heat and warmth and so much at once. She feels the vibrations of what could’ve been a chuckle, and moans louder.

She feels her back, sweaty against the fresh wallpaper. She feels her feet digging into harwood. She feels her brain, fuzzy and floating and gone. She feels her heart, settled and running.

She feels Nicole’s mouth on her, heat enveloping her entirely, tongue caressing her, nails digging into Waverly’s hips.

It doesn’t take long.

“Fuck, Nic-“ Waverly tries, out of breath. “Nicole, I’m going to-“

Nicole only redoubles her efforts, swallowing against Waverly, nose digging against closely trimmed hair, sucking and licking and humming against her. When Waverly looks down, she realizes with ecstasy that while one still holds her hips in place, Nicole’s other hand has snaked it’s way inside her jeans, the constant and steady rhythm unmistakable.

The realization that Nicole is touching herself as she sucks her off is the very last step into the abyss.

Waverly comes with a whine, and for a second she simply _is,_ the only reminder that she is still alive the unending wave of hot pleasure crashing through her. She floats in an ocean of desire, knees wobbling under her weight as she feels Nicole’s mouth, still around her, still drinking her in.

Nicole is there, then, as she always is, strong hands holding Waverly by the waist as they slowly descend to the ground, Waverly’s naked skin too hot to be bothered by the cold hardwood floor.

Waverly breathes in, again and again, desperate, as Nicole slowly whisper sweet nothing’s in her ear. Her naked back is pressed against Nicole’s chest, and she feels the scratching of Nicole’s skin against her thighs.

She stares straight ahead, the glow of the moon watching over her as she regains her bearings.

“-such a good girl,” she registers Nicole saying against her hair, “you taste so good, baby”.

Waverly groans.

“I think I died,” she says, allowing herself to press further into Nicole.

Nicole laughs, all too proud of herself.

“That’s what I wanted to hear,” she says.

Waverly is shocked by how quickly she goes back to being her Nicole again, the hot cup of tea with sweet honey.

“You sure you’d never sucked a dick before?” Waverly asks, too immersed in pleasure to care about her words.

Nicole laughs even louder.

“I’m a good student,” she shrugs, long fingers running through Waverly’s sweaty skin.

When Waverly’d thought about her first time with Nicole, there were candles and roses and a bed involved. She’d thought she wouldn’t allow Nicole to see her, not yet.

She thinks she prefers it this way, she concludes. Half-finished houses and Nicole on her knees, in a prayer.

She feels like a goddess.

***

Waverly rests very little.

As soon as she feels her lungs are fully functional again, she fishes for Nicole’s right hand, bringing it up to her lips before she can ask her what she’s doing.

For the first time, Waverly tastes Nicole, still warm and thick around her fingers. She licks her fingers, sucking until there’s no more of her.

She tastes as sweet as Waverly thought she would, musky and powerful and _Nicole._

“You taste good, too,” Waverly tells her with a cheeky smile.

Nicole clears her throat, too entranced to reply.

Waverly turns around, no longer caring she’s naked under Nicole’s gaze. For the first time, the feeling of herself, soft and slapping against her thighs, isn’t an annoyance. She grins.

“It’s not very polite to not return favors,” she tells Nicole, hands moving to unbutton her jeans.

“You don’t have to, Waves,” Nicole starts, but raises her hips as Waverly pulls off her pants.

“I want to,” Waverly remarks. She stares at Nicole, admiring the softness and strength in front of her. “Boxers,” she says with a smile, staring at Nicole’s underwear.

She can see a small patch of wetness there.

“What about them?” asks Nicole, uncharacteristically unbalanced.

Waverly hums.

“You look hot in them,” she says, fingers resting against their waistband.

Nicole settles further against the wall, breathing rapidly.

Waverly doesn’t ask before pulling her underwear down, allowing a content gasp to make it’s way out of her lips as she sees Nicole for the very first time.

“Hotter out of them, though,” she says, throwing the underwear behind her and meeting Nicole’s eyes.

Nicole smiles at her, cocky and self assured again. She spreads her legs, inviting Waverly.

“It’s not very polite to stare,” she says.

Waverly lays down, bare stomach pressing against cold hardwood.

She stares.

And then her mouth is on Nicole, and she learns she’s also a great student.

Nicole guides her, tight grip on her hair as she repeats again and again how good of a girl Waverly is, until she can no longer speak anything more than Waverly’s name like a prayer. She moans, sweet and thick and lustful, and Waverly feels so much pride she decides she really quite likes going down on someone if they taste this good and sound this delicious.

Waverly, inspired and daring and having the time of her life, presses two fingers inside her, and Nicole curses so loud Waverly is glad the house is in the middle of nowhere.

When Nicole comes against Waverly’s mouth, infinite and heavenly and divine, her name half-formed on her tongue, Waverly is left with no pain, with no bitter taste on her tongue, with no shame or regret or self-hatred.

As they lay on the cold floor, the sun slowly rising and casting a red glow inside the room and warming their naked skin, Waverly knows, deep in her heart, that if she’d known how it felt to be Nicole’s, she’d always known why she was alive.

“You’re an angel,” Nicole tells her, hands slowly caressing her messy hair.

Waverly smiles, nuzzling against her neck.

“If I was,” she says, “I’d leave heaven to be with you”.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay. Had all my wisdom teeth removed and embarked in a nightmarish week of wishing I had no corporeal form. Also my only caloric intake in 5 days has been pineapple juice.  
> Fair to say I was very much not in the mood to write anything.  
> Anyways, here it is.

Waverly’s back complains as she moves to stand up, holding onto Nicole’s outstretched hand for support. The redhead laughs.

“I am _not_ seventeen anymore, that’s for sure,” she chuckles, thumb running over Waverly’s palm.

“You didn’t seem too bad on the stamina department,” Waverly says with a smirk before moving to retrieve her scattered clothing, hips moving with purpose and intention.

She feels Nicole’s eyes on her bare skin as much as she feels the young rays of sunlight caressing her body through the window.

“I’m not _that_ old, Waves,” Nicole replies after a moment, and Waverly hears her bare feet shuffling against wood. “My back doesn’t seem to agree, though,” Nicole continues, and Waverly feels the light tap of what she realizes is her sock hitting her on the back.

She looks over her shoulder, Nicole’s towering and very much still naked form casting an outstretched shadow over the freshly painted walls. She’s smirking, throwing Waverly a wink before moving to put on her boxers.

“Show-off,” Waverly grumbles, entranced by the way Nicole’s muscles ripple under soft skin as she moves to pull on her jeans. Her sharp shoulders draw her attention, and she watches with intent as the amazon in front of her dresses.

Nicole hums, something between a growl and a sigh, and Waverly smiles even wider.

She could get used to this, she knows.

Nicole Haught is easy, familiar. Not boring, expected, but _known._ A welcome certainty.

“Do you have to work today?” asks Waverly, voice muffled as she pulls her shirt over her head. Nicole has stepped closer, holding Waverly’s shoes in her hand.

“I don’t,” Nicole replies, gesturing for Waverly to sit down on the makeshift stool behind her. Waverly obliges.

“Me neither,” Waverly replies, barely able to contain her excitement with the prospect of an entire day with Nicole by her side.

Nicole crouches down in front of her, a quizzical look on her face, before gentle hands move to put on Waverly’s socks. Waverly blushes.

“You don’t have to-” she starts.

Nicole clicks her tongue.

“Waverly,” she looks up, Waverly’s bare feet in her hand as she presses a quick peck to it, “the only thing I do because I _have_ to do is letting you go every once in a while,” she smiles, moving to pick up her shoes, “will you _please_ let that into that big brain of yours?”

Waverly only smiles, feeling taken and satiated and herself.

***

They’re startled right before their clothes go back on the floor, the sound of slamming and hammering and frustrated groans making it’s way up the stairs.

***

“Will wonders ever cease?” asks Nicole, arm wrapped around Waverly’s shoulders as they watch Wynonna attempting to repair the old and creaky wooden steps of the staircase.

She looks up, as if already expecting them to be standing there, snarling at them before returning to her work.

Work-ish.

Waverly watches as one might watch a train wreck as her sister rips off a wooden plank with her bare hands, swearing under her breath.

“You sure you know what you’re-” starts Waverly.

“I’m _fine_ ,” Wynonna yells back, twisting the plank around in her hands as if searching for an explanation as to why exactly she just ripped it off.

“I don’t think that’s the one that was-” starts Nicole.

“I’m _fine!_ ”

Waverly and Nicole stare, Nicole’s arm still wrapped around Waverly.

“What do you guys want?” asks Wynonna with a grumble.

“You’re…”

“You’re on the way,” Waverly says with an apologetic shrug.

Wynonna lets out a breath before standing, gesturing with over the top curtsy for them to walk down the rest of the steps.

Waverly feels her heart settling, Wynonna too preoccupied with destroying the staircase to notice they just came downstairs at an awfully early time with no good reason.

“Waverly Earp!” comes Wynonna’s booming voice, and Waverly sighs in defeat. Settled too soon.

Both women stop, Nicole’s arm a little heavier around her.

“Yeah?” comes Waverly’s voice, a note too high.

“Care to explain what you guys are doing here at the asscrack of dawn?” asks Wynonna, and Waverly hears heavy boots against creaking wood as she approaches them.

Nicole looks down at her with despair, which only heightens when she notices Waverly’s neck.

“Can you not do this right now?” Waverly begs, eyes shut tightly.

“Do what?” Wynonna stands in front of them, hands resting over her hips with mock seriousness. “Ask why the two of you positively _reek_ of _sin?”_

Waverly groans in exasperation.

Nicole lets out what could be a terrified yelp or a very high sigh.

“Oh my god!” Wynonna continues her monologue, only very mildly interested in the couple in front of her, “you two godless heathens christened the house before I did!” she sighs with disappointment.

Waverly is not sure if it is aimed at herself or at them.

“Can we go now?” asks Nicole, already moving towards the door.

“No we cannot, Peter Pan,” Wynonna gestures towards them. She thinks it over, “we need to have a little talk,” she tells Nicole.

“For god’s sake, Wy-”

“And _you_ little succubi will buy me breakfast for my troubles!” she points at Waverly.

“What _troubles?!_ ” asks Waverly, all too sure she will not get an answer.

***

“Think she’s gonna kill me?” asks Nicole as Waverly returns to her car, overnight bag in hand.

“She never did kill Champ,” Waverly replies, though it feels like a half-answer.

Nicole hums beside her, the soft, constant hum of the car against pavement lulling Waverly into a trance as they drive towards Nicole’s house.

“Why not?” asks Nicole suddenly.

Waverly shakes her head, confused.

“Why not what?”

“Why didn’t she kill Champ?”

Waverly narrows her eyes.

“Are you asking me why my sister didn’t kill my ex-boyfriend?” she asks, humor evident in her voice.

“Not literally,” Nicole shrugs.

“Well,” Waverly starts, hand resting atop Nicole’s right hand over the gear stick, “despite popular belief, I can make my own decisions”.

Nicole groans beside her.

“That’s not what I mean, baby”.

The pet name comes charged with the memory of Nicole’s lips around her.

Waverly chokes on her own saliva.

“I know,” she gets out after a moment, “he wasn’t that bad. I don’t think he ever gave her a concrete reason, I guess,” she shrugs, not very preoccupied with her ex-boyfriend at the moment. “She likes you, though. But she’ll also have a very uncomfortable conversation with you when we get back”.

The car stops, and Nicole grabs Waverly’s bag without another word.

***

“Going shy on me now, Deputy?” smirks Waverly, towel wrapped around her small frame as she stands by the bathroom door.

Nicole sits on her bed, long legs crossed underneath her.

“Just giving you space,” she shrugs, almost a question.

“Space isn’t really what’s on my mind right now,” Waverly says, voice low and inviting.

Nicole gets up.

***

Waverly had never showered with someone else.

Awfully personal ritual, cleansing oneself, and the mere thought of being that exposed to someone else’s eyes made her taste bile.

Nicole washes her hair with deliberate care, so gentle her nails barely even scrape against Waverly’s scalp.

Waverly hums under her, content with the feeling of her body pressing against someone else, of the warm water running down them, between them, with them.

“I like you like this,” says Nicole as she rinses the shampoo off Waverly’s hair. Her hands rest over Waverly’s shoulders, down her arms, around her waist.

“Naked?” asks Waverly, the feeling of naked skin against her own taunting, tormenting. She feels her own blood descend, feels herself swell against warm water.

Nicole laughs.

“Proud,” she replies with a smile.

Waverly twists around, kissing her, long and deep and urgent, and Nicole kisses her back, open and giving and hers.

Waverly feels Nicole’s nipples brushing against her naked back, insistent. She feels calloused hands snaking down her stomach, caressing the short trail of hair as if requesting an invitation.

“Please,” she asks Nicole, and Nicole is there, as she always is, soft hands wrapping around her already throbbing cock. She sighs with relief as Nicole tightens her grip, still tentative and unsure as she starts moving.

Waverly rests her head against the crook of Nicole’s neck.

“Is this okay?” asks Nicole, lips close to Waverly’s ear.

Waverly shivers.

She feels her own hand snake down, holding herself over Nicole and slowly guiding her long fingers, her spine tingling as the fire pit in her belly warms and warms and warms, a fiery, unbearable crescendo.

She feels Nicole’s thickening breathing against her neck, hears the small sighs and hums and moans. Waverly turns around, Nicole’s hand returning to it’s rightful place as Waverly’s own looks for sticky wet heat.

Nicole needs very little preparation before Waverly’s fingers are inside her, pressing and twisting as she hears her moan in her ear.

***

“Wynonna’s going to kill us,” Waverly says, trying her best to hold the multiple bags of pastry steady on her lap as Nicole’s car bobs about over the potholes of the property.

“She might kill me,” says Nicole, staring at the now even worse array of purple bruises on Waverly’s neck.

Waverly takes a deep breath before leaving the car, hoping the amount of food might distract Wynonna from the fact that they left over two hours ago.

It does not.

“I can’t believe you guys were at it again,” says Wynonna, pulling a bag from Waverly’s grasp.

“Wynonna…” Nicole sighs, somewhat fondly.

Waverly holds back a chuckle as they enter the half-done house, John Henry already sitting on their new kitchen table with a lit cigarillo under his moustache.

“Don’t smoke inside!” Waverly chastises, removing the food from inside the bags as Nicole distributes the coffee around.

He obediently throws it out of the open window.

As they sit, chatting idly about what still needs work and tiptoeing around Wynonna’s not quite subtle questions about what happened to Waverly’s neck and John Henry’s maniac winking at Nicole, Waverly decides she might get used to this, to the smell of worn wood and fresh coffee and croissants on a nice Sunday morning, the lingering taste of Nicole Haught on her lips at the burn of her long fingers all around her skin.

***

“Princess,” greets Robert, arms bare under the waistcoat he very generously wears as a shirt.

“Bobo!” Waverly squeals, pulling him into a hug.

“I was thinking,” he starts, thoughtfully. “What do you think about kilts?”

“You’re not Scottish,” Waverly reminds him as he laces their arms together.

Stephen had begged her to help him pick his outfit for the wedding, not so subtly asking her to please not let him pick anything too… extraordinary, much to Robert’s dismay.

“Well,” Robert replies, “it is a ceremonial article of clothing, isn’t it?” he asks, serious. “Weddings are ceremonies”.

Waverly tells him that is not how it works.

As they walk around isles upon isles upon isles of wedding dresses and tuxedos and other extraordinarily expensive articles of clothing, Robert clicking his tongue while mumbling words like “boring” and “decadent” under his breath, Waverly realizes she’s been tasked with an impossible job.

“You need your dress as well, no?” Robert asks her, briefly stopping in front of a hot pink suit before Waverly drags him away by the elbow.

“You said you hadn’t decided on the bridesmaids color yet”, she says, praying to God he’ll like the gray suit she’s pointing at.

“Purple, Stephen says,” Robert tells her while shaking his head with vehemence at the suit, “Princess, this is too _tedious,”_ he groans, “I should wear purple as well”.

Waverly laughs.

“Have you ever seen a groom wear _purple,_ Robert?” she asks him, brain now set on finding something for herself as well. “What is Stephen going to wear?” she asks him.

“I do not know,” Robert says with a shrug, “he wants it to be a surprise”.

Waverly hums, pleased.

“I can’t believe you two are getting married!” she squeals, slapping his arm as he studiously analyzes a dark-blue suit Waverly can’t help but imagine would look quite dashing on her girlfriend.

“Officer Haught would look positively handsome in this,” Robert reads her mind.

Waverly gasps.

“I was thinking the same thing!” she tells him, eyes wide.

Robert chuckles, mildly impressed.

“You’re quite predictable, darling,” he tells her with a dismissive wave of his hand. “You have invited her, yes?”

“Obviously,” Waverly rolls her eyes, “she’s my date”.

Robert stops, smiling down at her.

“I like her,” he tells her, genuine and balmy, “I’m glad you’re keeping that one”.

“As am I,” Waverly tells him with a smirk, “should I ask her what she’s wearing? Should we match?”

Robert laughs, vast and astray.

“ _Match?”_ he laughs louder, “you’re the same teenage girl from ten years ago, my dear”.

Waverly blushes.

“Isn’t she supposed to wear those uniform suits and whatnot?” Robert asks, and Waverly feels her entire body go warm in about three seconds.

Robert stares at her before laughing again.

“Oh dear,” he says between chuckles, “my darling little girl has a uniform fetish”.

Waverly slaps his arm so forcefully the sound echoes around the gigantic store. One woman looks behind her, terrified.

“Shut up!” she hisses at him, cheeks so hot they sting.

Robert laughs louder, deranged.

Waverly leaves him to himself, groaning under her breath as she enters the next aisle of carefully kept suits. Robert follows after her, still laughing.

“What about this one?” she asks, desperate to change the subject. A classic tuxedo stares back at them, sharp and vintage.

“Do you take me as some sort of suburban father, Waverly Earp?” Robert replies, frustrated as he pushed the offending fabric aside.

Waverly sighs, trailing behind him.

“I’m not letting you get married in a neon yellow parka, Bobo,” she tells him with a tired sigh.

He looks over his shoulder, eyebrows raised.

“Have some respect, Princess,” he shushes her before continuing their impossible trek through the store.

Waverly’s feet ache, her infinite patience truly tried as Robert rejects virtually any option she suggests. She’s chosen three dresses for herself, which already wait for her in the dressing room, but the mohawked man seems particularly inspired to criticize even the handkerchiefs.

He stops, suddenly, and Waverly’s forehead smacks against his square back.

“Robert, I swear to-” Waverly frowns, pushing herself away from him.

“There we are,” he tells her with reverence.

“What?” she asks, walking up in front of him. He points.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Waverly deadpans.

In front of them hangs a gray, lightly checkered kilt, with a matching vest and jacket.

“You’re not Scottish,” Waverly reminds him once again.

Robert looks back at her, and his expression tells her it is useless to argue.

She sighs.

“Stephen is going to kill me,” she tells him, shaking her head as he asks one of the clerk to try it on.

“Stephen should think I look handsome in everything,” he tells her matter-of-factly, “he is to be my husband”.

Waverly sighs again.

***

“The Homestead looks about done,” Gus says, light conversation as she cuts herself a slice of pizza.

“Told you we could do it,” Wynonna says around a mouthful of peperoni, very much ignoring the fact that each day they worked less and hired more workers to do things properly.

Gus hums, only half believing her words.

“You’re going to miss us?” asks Waverly, cutting herself another piece of her own vegan pizza as she looks over at Nicole, who’s bravely sharing the chickpea dough and cashew-nut cheese pizza with Waverly as if she’d not much rather have some Domino’s.

“Meh,” Gus shrugs with a sly smile. “You’ll be my neighbors. I’m sure Wynonna will come here whenever she needs to do laundry”.

Nicole laughs, to which Wynonna narrows her eyes.

“Don’t get too giddy, red,” Wynonna tells her, “we still haven’t talked”.

Nicole gulps, no longer amused.

“Stop terrorizing her, Wynonna,” Gus grumbles at her with a sigh, “we all know you’re just jealous Waverly isn’t all yours”.

Nicole laughs louder this time, and Waverly follows. Wynonna grumbles, waving her slice of pizza around before taking another bite.

“You can keep brainiac, Misty,” Wynonna says, barely bothering to finish her beer before moving to get another one, “all she does is read about fucking Egypt or whatever”.

“No swearing on the dinner table,” Gus tells her, rolling her eyes.

“That isn’t all she does,” Nicole bites back, and both Waverly and Wynonna choke on their food.

Gus looks absolutely disinterested.

***

“I like your family,” Nicole tells Waverly as she examines the pictures on the living room.

Waverly had asked Gus to remove the ones before she’d started her transition.

“They’re… special,” Waverly says, legs crossed on the couch as she sips on her wine.

Nicole turns around, smiling at her. She points at a picture of a 15 year old Waverly with a much less extravagant Robert Svane beside her.

“Can’t believe you’ve known him for so long,” she mumbles, almost to herself.

Waverly feels truth boiling inside her, out of her system before she realizes.

“If I hadn’t I’d probably be buried right now,” she says with a hollow chuckle. Nicole frowns, light demeanor darkened.

She moves to sit beside her, beer bottle placed beside her wine glass.

“That bad, uh, baby?” she asks, tentatively.

Waverly only shrugs.

Nicole’s hand rests on her shoulder, uniform shirt scraping against her bare arms.

“I didn’t even know there were other people like me, before,” she says.

Nicole nods with understanding. Silence wraps around them like a noose.

“You know why I still smoke, sometimes?” Nicole asks Waverly, voice quiet.

Waverly looks at her, questioning.

“It’s a very… Un-Nicole thing to do,” Waverly says with a small smile, and Nicole laughs.

“I guess,” she says, “my parents were always this crazy types, right? The kind of people who’d join a cult if they had the chance”.

Waverly nods, urging her on.

“When I was… 13 years old, I think? Maybe twelve. I don’t know,” Nicole frowns, “anyways, it was their church phase,” she says with a chuckle, “so they’d go to church pretty much every day, give away all our stuff to them and all,” Nicole continues, looking down at her own hands, “and they didn’t really care if I came along or whatever the hell I was doing with myself”.

Waverly rests her hand over Nicole’s knee.

“So I’d just wander around, and there were these two teenagers who smoked behind the church. Their parents worked there or whatever,” she shrugs, “I don’t even remember their names, really,” she admits with a sad smile, “but they were always there, smoking and talking and _there_ so I just went along, I guess. They weren’t even friends, really, but they were stable. They listened”.

Waverly pulls on a loose thread on Nicole’s uniform trousers, distracted.

“Coming here, I didn’t really expect much stability,” Nicole tells her, “I guess the one person I’ve known the longest was Shae, which says a lot. I never had my… people”.

Nicole holds her hand, stable and strong and hers.

“It’s nice, being with you. You seem to not know it, but you’re a rock, Waverly Earp. You’re the strongest person I know. And you have strong people with you, too”.

Nicole Haught presses her lips to each of Waverly Earp’s knuckles.

“I’m glad I could join in”.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also, yes, ending for real this time. Feels like the appropriate time, too. Thanks for everything.  
> As soon as this one's done, I'll start with the one I've been sketching, so not to fret!


	12. On found family, the future and expertise

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a warning, very slight references to domestic abuse (teenyyy tiny)  
> Not very slight references to weed.

On Waverly’s 22nd birthday, she invites her entire family to her new home. Nicole Haught is the first to arrive, or rather, she’s the one who brings Waverly home after making a point of fucking her through her last night as a 21 year old and first morning as a 22 year old.

Stephen and Robert Svane gift her with the terribly expensive dress she’d chosen for their wedding, and she almost cries.

John Henry arrives with copious amounts of alcohol and a smile visible even under his thick mustache.

Gus bakes her a cake, which Wynonna had decorated with what she claims are butterflies, but Waverly is pretty sure are penises.

Chrissy Nedley arrives with Champ in tow, and he gives her a sheepish smile and the book _Undoing Gender_ by Judith Butler, which he says he has read but understood very little.

Waverly Earp cries her little eyes out, and Wynonna tells her not to ruin her own party.

***

Three days before, Waverly had spent the night alone at the Homestead. They were still moving, and the boxes everywhere made her feel like a traveler, but she tells Wynonna she wants to “test” her own room, and Wynonna agrees, too tired from work to argue with her through the phone.

The first thing she thinks of when she enters the room is the first time she came by someone else’s doing, and she smiles to herself.

She brings her speakers out of the box, putting on music before starting to unpack her books.

The shelves Nicole set up are nice and sturdy, but try as she might, it’s impossible to organize all of the books on them.

Waverly sighs, staring at the still full second box of books. She settles on piling them under the shelves, much like Nicole does in her own room.

She smiles at the little reminder, thinking it’d be nice to have it when she slept by herself.

***

Waverly had bought her own full-length mirror.

(It was her very first, and Wynonna had high-fived with enthusiasm that made it seem like a hug).

She stares at herself as the fluorescent lights add a sickly, pale hue to her skin. She tilts her head to the side, smiling.

Waverly Earp admires the way her light brown hair cascades around her shoulders. She admires the small muscles on her arms and the tightness of her stomach and the velvety curve of her waist.

Waverly Earp admires, in wonder, how her feet are really quite small. She admires her calves and her scarred thighs and her bruised knees, purple and sore from praying for Nicole, a sweet and wet and selfish worship.

Waverly Earp admires the way her hipbones protrude, determined on settling the path. She admires the soft brown hair and she admires what is between her legs, smiling at herself before laughing at the silliness of smiling to one’s own dick.

***

She wonders if she should forgive her father for bringing the sting of leather to her, and she wonders if she should forgive her sister for bringing the sting of betrayal to her, and she wonders if she should forgive her biological father for killing them both.

It was jealously and spite and vengeance that’d brought him to do it, so she decides forgiveness is the right road to walk down.

She was never one to let her own biology define who she was, she thinks to herself.

***

She sleeps alone, on a house full of ghosts and scars and blemishes, and she sleeps soundly.

***

“Are you okay?” asks Nicole Haught, sitting on Waverly’s bed as she carefully watches Waverly wipe her own cheeks without ruining her make-up. It is her birthday, after all.

“Yeah,” Waverly tells her, sniffling.

Nicole does not seem to believe her, but says nothing.

Waverly turns around, finally happy with how her own face looks, and catches Nicole side-eyeing the book Champ had given her, brows furrowed.

“What?” she asks, stepping closer until her legs rest against the insides of Nicole’s thighs. She runs her hands through unruly red hair, the smell of vanilla shampoo making a mess of her thoughts.

“I haven’t read this one yet,” Nicole tells her with uncharacteristic sullenness.

“Wait,” Waverly says, fingers still navigating a forest of fire, “are you jealous?” she asks, leaning away with a grin.

Nicole stares back, very terribly hiding her own annoyance.

“Of Champ?” she scoffs, affected, “of course not”.

Waverly laughs, and the world acknowledges she’s having the time of her life.

Nicole groans, hands resting on Waverly’s hips.

“I’m just pissed he’s read it already! It was on my list!”

Waverly laughs so hard her abs start to hurt.

“I can’t believe I have two worthy gentlemen with charmingly sizeable biceps competing for my hand in marriage in a battle of _wits_!” she lets out between chuckles, and Nicole breaks into a fit of giggles.

“I don’t have to compete, thank you very much! I already won,” Nicole says with faux cockiness, hand moving to tip an invisible hat.

It takes them a while to catch their breaths.

“Sorry,” Nicole says sheepishly, standing up and holding Waverly’s hand, “jealousy is silly”.

Waverly smiles.

“It’s a little hot, though,” she says, raising her eyebrow in challenge.

A beat.

“I’ll kick his fucking ass,” Nicole says with affected gruffness on her voice.

Waverly laughs all the way downstairs.

***

Champ receives an almost unfair amount of strange looks at first, but Wynonna slaps the back of his head and tells him she’s glad he isn’t a jackass, and he laughs as loud and openly as he always did, and it seems to set the room at ease with his presence. Waverly is glad.

***

“Guys,” Waverly starts after blowing on the candle, and the room goes quiet.

(Wynonna had forgotten to buy any. Gus suggested they stick in normal ones, and John Henry suggested they stick 22 cigarillos on the cake.

Waverly wasn’t sure if they were being serious.

Nicole had bought pink and glittery birthday candle with “happy 22nd birthday” written in purple, presenting it to Waverly with a knowing look. Her parents always forgot the candles).

“I just want to thank everyone for being here,” she says, sharing a pointed look with Champ, who smiles, “not only today, but everyday. You really have no idea how much your support has meant to me”.

She starts to feel her eyes water again.

“Wynonna’s been paying us to do it,” Stephen jokes, smiling as Robert chuckles beside him.

“You guys are getting _paid?_ ” Nicole asks with faux surprise. Waverly slaps her arm, and her family laughs.

She no longer wants to cry.

***

Champ is the first to leave, not before hugging Waverly tightly and telling her he’s glad she’s doing well. She thanks him, holding back her giggles as she watches Nicole give him a handshake that leaves him clutching his own hand as he enters his uber.

“I can’t tell if you’re trying to be hot or if you’re really jealous,” Waverly whispers on her ear, on the tips of her toes.

Nicole smirks.

“Good,” she says with a wink, and Waverly feels the hazey pool settling in.

***

Robert and Stephen leave, then, taking Chrissy with them and claiming they have to wake up early to figure out the final touches of the wedding.

Both Chrissy and Waverly squeal in excitement as Nicole smiles warmly and Wynonna pretends she’s throwing up.

Gus leaves soon after, telling them she’s old and tired and dying to be alone in her own house.

***

As an exception, Waverly allows Wynonna, Nicole and John Henry to smoke by the front porch.

She sits, legs outstretched and resting on Nicole’s thighs, sipping on her wine as she watches with horrifying arousal as Nicole lights the rolled up cigarette John Henry gives her. He offers one to Waverly, but she declines.

The smoke coils out through Nicole’s nose, and she seems relaxed, content as she takes another drag. The burning tobacco is the same color as her hair.

“Weird little family we got going on, uh, baby girl?” Wynonna breaks her trance, sipping on what Waverly’s sure is at least her fifteenth beer.

“All families, are, I suppose,” Waverly replies, thoughtful.

“Family, uh?” Nicole says, surprised. She snorts. “Who would’ve thought”.

“Get used to it, Florence and the Machine,” Wynonna says, “by the looks of it, Waverly will kill you before you break up with her”.

Nicole scoffs.

“Not planning on it, Earp,” she blows out smoke, “also, Florence and the Machine? Are you running out of redheads?”

John Henry snorts, and Wynonna slaps his hat.

“You sure you aren’t still into Champ, Waves?” she asks, fake smile plastered on, “he reads books now!” she says with faux excitement.

Waverly rolls her eyes, clicking her tongue.

***

Wynonna stands in front of the bathroom as Waverly throws open the door, tower still wrapped around her head. Startled, she drops her toothbrush.

“ _Fuck_ , Wynonna!” she groans, and Wynonna looks positively manic with the curse word.

“You really are growing up,” she says, hand over Waverly’s cheek.

“What do you want? I thought you were with Henry,” she says, sighing.

She had not too subtly asked Wynonna to not stay the night, to which Wynonna had gagged before saying she would rather die than hear Nicole “rail her baby sister”.

“I’m leaving, horn dog, but I had to give you your gift,” she says with a flourish.

A perfectly rolled joint rests between her fingers, and she waves it around as a magician would wave their wand.

“Are you serious?” Waverly asks, irritated.

She’d smoked before, as you do, but always thought it to be too much of a hassle, and never quite understood Wynonna’s appreciation for it.

“You are a _woman,_ Waverly Earp,” Wynonna tells her, and Waverly grabs it off her hands, “so be a proper lady and get high off your fucking ass on your birthday!” she says, excited.

Waverly gives her what could be read as a groan, or a nod, or a shrug. Or all of those.

“And in case you don’t want to have to bother with buying _me_ any gifts,” Wynonna says as she starts to walk off backwards. “ _Please_ get Officer Uptight high,” she pleads, laughing at herself before walking down the stairs. “See ya! Wear a condom, I think,” she yells.

Waverly groans before moving inside her bedroom.

Nicole sits on the edge of the bed in boxers and an _Adventure Time_ t-shirt, phone in hand as she types something. Waverly smiles.

Waverly is very much aware she is an officer of the law.

“So…” she starts, pulling a chair so she’s sitting in front of Nicole. Her girlfriend puts down her phone, patting her lap for Waverly to put her feet on. She starts to massage them. “Thanks, love,” Waverly says.

Nicole smiles.

“Wynonna said she had a gift for you? Said I’d love it,” Nicole chuckles, “is it a sex toy?”

Waverly laughs.

“Not a sex toy. I’m not sure if it’s better, though,” she says, before presenting the joint to Nicole.

Nicole instantly recognizes it, surprised for a moment before snorting.

“Weed,” Nicole says simply, face stoic. “That is illegal, you know,” she says, now serious.

Waverly whines.

“Wynonna got it for me!” she explains, voice high.

“I _am_ a cop,” Nicole says, standing up.

Waverly’s eyes go wide, and she feels sweat gathering on her palms.

“What? Are you serious?” she asks, following Nicole with her eyes as the redhead shuffles about on her duffle bag.

She pulls out handcuffs.

_Oh._

Waverly feels herself harden in a second, joint forgotten over the bed as her stomach twitches and her heart beats against her ribs.

“Are you…” she gulps, uncomfortable against the lace of her underwear, “are you going to arrest me, Officer?”

Nicole smiles, and behind the hardened façade, Waverly sees relief, playfulness. Hers.

“Something like that, pretty girl,” she says, stalking around Waverly as the handcuffs dangle from her fingers, the sound of metal clanking against metal sending pulsing electricity straight down to Waverly’s core.

Waverly feels soft hands tugging her shoulders. A question.

She nods with vehemence.

“I expected more from you, miss Earp,” she says, slowly snaking her arms down Waverly’s, grabbing on her wrist with gentleness before guiding it back back back until Waverly’s knuckles rest against the back of the chair. She feels cold metal, and then the first cuff is wrapped loosely against her wrist. Nicole tugs once, another question. Waverly nods, breathing heavily.

“You’ve always been such a good girl,” she purrs, lips only inches from Waverly’s ear, and she feels her entire body shiver. Gentleness again. The back of the chair. Cold metal.

She realizes, with satisfaction and desperation and unquenchable lust that she’s at Nicole Haught’s mercy, handcuffed and stuck to the chair.

There’s no one’s mercy she’d rather depend on.

“What should I do with you?” Nicole asks, and Waverly knows she isn’t supposed to answer. She feels nails scratching against her bare shoulder, playing with the strap of her shirt, travelling south until they scratch against her cleavage.

She gasps, eyes closed.

“Enjoying yourself, uh?” Nicole asks, and Waverly feels a tinge of shame so raw and desired her cock twitches. “God, I can already _see_ you,” Nicole says, and Waverly is sure it was meant to embarrass her, but the sheer desire in Nicole’s voice betrays her.

Suddenly and with no warning, Nicole roughly tugs on the straps of her shirt, pulling it down just enough so that her breasts are exposed to the chilly room. The wrongness of it, the delicious inappropriateness of being exposed, still half dressed, serving only one purpose, forces a moan out of Waverly’s throat. Nicole, despite herself, delights in it, responding with a groan of pride at her handiwork.

Waverly hears shuffling behind her, but doesn’t dare to twist around, certain she’s supposed to look straight forward.

Nicole appears, then, shirtless, and unceremoniously tugging on Waverly’s pajama pants and underwear, pulling them off with little care.

Waverly’s exposed, then, truly and terribly, cock painfully straining against the cold air, hardened nipples begging for _anything._

Nicole, always her Nicole, gasps, breaking character.

“You’re so gorgeous, princess,” she says with reverence, eyes softening as they take in every inch of skin presented to her.

Waverly is glad for the intermission.

“So are you,” she grins, desperate for Nicole to see how _right_ all of this.

Nicole, always her Nicole, sees it.

She moves, silently, until she’s resting on the very center of the bed, legs spread just right so Waverly can see the patch of wetness against soft cotton.

“I’d keep going,” Nicole tells her, clicking her tongue, “but you seem to be enjoying it a little too much,” she tells Waverly with a regretful shake of the head.

She pulls off her own underwear, soft red hair and wetness and heaven presented to Waverly, who can only wiggle around on her makeshift prison.

And then Nicole is touching herself, desire clear in her eyes as she stares Waverly down, eyes burning her exposed skin, mouth agape as she notices just how desperate Waverly is for her.

Waverly whines, fighting uselessly against her bonds as she watches Nicole’s fingers disappear inside her, moaning with what feels like shared, telepathic pleasure, her cock twitching in desperation.

It is so _good_ to be desired, she thinks to herself as Nicole stares, unashamed.

When she comes, Waverly is quite sure she’s moaning as well, out of breath as she watches the woman in front of her twist against the sheets, sweaty and glorious under the artificial lights.

A beat.

Nicole is already up, shuffling on her knees until she kneels on the bed in front of Waverly, eyes locking on hers.

“You can behave when you want to,” Nicole tells her, the air charged and crackling around them, and Waverly desperately nods, pleading, “I guess you can have a little treat,” says Nicole.

She moves forward, feet against linoleum as she stares Waverly down with a wicked smile.

She extends her hands, pinching Waverly’s nipples with no preparation, and Waverly whines loudly, an instant gratification cascading through her entire body. Nicole pulls and tugs roughly, palming her breasts as is she’s entertaining herself.

And then Waverly is sure God is real and that he loves her, because Nicole gets on her knees, uncapping a bottle of lube Waverly hadn’t even noticed she’d brought with her.

“Remember what we talked about, baby?” she asks Waverly, and Waverly gulps.

She’d always enjoyed being penetrated, being taken that way. It felt very… womanly, to her.

Champ had made it hard to enjoy, as it is.

Nicole had offered to fix that.

“I remember,” she tells Nicole, voice low.

“Have you changed your mind?” Nicole asks her sweetly, head tilted.

Waverly considers it for a moment.

“No,” she says finally, “just… just go slow,” she tells Nicole.

Nicole nods, gripping her cock with a soft touch before slowly moving, tightening her grip as she moves up and down.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Waverly groans, her desperation bordering on insanity.

Nicole grins below her, movements still deliberate, knowingly slow and enticing.

“Nicole,” Waverly lets out, a moan and a warning.

Nicole only laughs before her tongue is running up Waverly’s length with desperation not unlike Waverly’s. She licks and she sucks and Waverly barely even notices as her thumb presses against her.

Her eyes go wide.

Nicole is _inside_ her. She is _inside_ her and Waverly’s never felt so full, so satisfied.

Nicole presses further in, pressing a kiss to Waverly before smirking up at her.

“We good?” she asks as Waverly wriggles against cold metal and hard wood.

“We great. Fantastic. Please add another-” she starts, but does not finish, rudely interrupted by Nicole’s warm mouth around her once again.

She feels as Nicole pulls out, and she feels as a longer, more slender finger presses in again. It takes very little time before two fingers are inside her, a steady rhythm, kept time by her tongue and hollowed out cheeks against soft skin.

Waverly remembers something.

“Did you bring it?” she asks the empty air, eyes closed as she tries to focus on how to make her mouth work.

A pop.

“I did,” Nicole tells her, rhythm constant.

“I think I…” Waverly starts, groans, tries again, “I think I want to try it”.

Nicole is never one to brag, but the pride with which she stands up and moves cheerfully towards her duffle bag again, pulling out a black box and smiling at Waverly as she removes a strap-on feels a hell of a lot like bragging.

“Shut up,” Waverly tells her.

Nicole laughs, moving to unlock the handcuffs.

Waverly groans, moving her arms as Nicole rubs her reddened wrists.

“Everything okay?” she asks, and Waverly nods before not so kindly telling her to put it _on._

Nicole does, with the same cocky cheerfulness, and Waverly huffs, smiling fondly at the monument to divergence in front of her.

Waverly lays down, back against soft covers, and watches with surprising calmness as Nicole adds a healthy amount of lube to the dildo dangling between her legs.

“We’re matching now,” Waverly jokes, surprising herself, and Nicole looks positively thrilled, wiggling her hips suggestively as Waverly laughs.

She settles on her knees between Waverly’s legs.

“Tell me and I’ll stop okay?” she tells Waverly, eyes glimmering, and Waverly is eternally glad she’s chosen her.

Nicole is inside her, then, slowly at first, cautious, and then she reaches _something_ and Waverly swears so loudly Nicole thinks she’s hurt her.

Nicole presses herself against her, and then they all sweat and movement and wordless sounds.

Nicole comes, groaning Waverly’s name in her ear.

Waverly comes, unable to speak.

***

“Good Lord in Heaven,” Waverly groans again, legs spread wide and ass still sore. She smiles.

Nicole only mumbles something beside her, sweaty back rising and falling as she rubs her face against a pillow.

“Champ could never-” Waverly starts.

“Please don’t talk about your ex after I’ve fucked you until you were unconscious, Waverly Earp,” Nicole says, but Waverly senses a hint of humor.

“It’s a _compliment_ Nicole,” Waverly says, moving to her side and sliding her fingers against Nicole’s bare back. She sighs, content.

“I’m glad you considered it,” Nicole tells her, face no longer smushed against fabric. 

“So am I,” Waverly tells her.

She feels herself, sticky and cold and shivering, and gets up, saying she’s going to wash up.

When Waverly returns, putting on fresh underwear and throwing Nicole’s shirt over herself, she spots Nicole by the edge of the bed, now in her boxers, examining the forgotten joint.

“Breaking the law, Officer?” Waverly asks, smirking as she sits beside her.

“I’m not a _fascist,”_ Nicole remarks, squinting at the object, “just a good ol’ cop”.

Waverly hums.

“And would this good ol’ cop like to enjoy some very much illegally acquired weed after fucking her girlfriend to Neptune and back?” Waverly asks.

Nicole grins.

“It’s your birthday,” she tells her, “and since my present hasn’t _arrived_ yet,” she grunts, “me breaking the law will be your gift for now”.

***

“You know Spongebob?” Waverly asks, lying on the floor, looking beside her to Nicole, who’s lying the opposite way, head weirdly close to her own.

“Who?” Nicole squints, confused.

“Spongebob” Waverly whispers.

“Ah,” Nicole says, eyes wide, “the sponge?”

“Yeah,” Waverly confirms, and starts laughing.

Nicole laughs with her.

“What about him?” she asks after she catches her breath.

“You know Mr…” Waverly frowns, “what’s his name? He’s the owner of the… of the burger thing”.

“Uh…” Nicole hums, staring up at the ceiling, “Mr. Crab?”

Waverly laughs.

“I don’t think that’s it but like… you know the little,” she laughs wildly, and Nicole laughs, too, “the little sound,” Waverly laughs again, even louder.

Nicole is laughing so hard tears start rolling down her face, disappearing in her hair.

“The little sound when he walks,” Waverly finishes, laughing and laughing and laughing. She moves into a fetal position, abdomen hurting with so much laughter.

Nicole almost sobs from laughing beside her, arms flailing as she struggles to breathe.

When they finally go quiet, Nicole speaks up.

“Click-click-click-click-click,” she attempts to imitate, and Waverly starts laughing again.

***

“You’re so _beautiful,”_ Waverly tells Nicole as they lay in bed facing each other after eating what was left of the birthday cake.

“You’re so _high,”_ Nicole tells her.

“I’m not _blind,_ Nicole,” Waverly shakes her head, “weed doesn’t do that,” she reminds her.

Nicole nods in agreement, serious.

“It doesn’t,” she agrees. “You’re very pretty,” she tells Waverly.

“You’re very high,” Waverly tells her.

“I’m not _blind,_ Waverly”.

***

Her 22nd birthday is her best birthday.

(So far, Nicole tells her, and Waverly believes it).

***

Waverly’s gift arrives.

It is a gigantic, most certainly expensive bookcase that Nicole’d chosen as to not only fit all her books but with loads of space for new ones.

Waverly tells her there’s no way she could ever accept something like that. It’s too expensive.

You’re being silly, Nicole tells her, it was not.

Waverly insists.

Nicole tells her it used to be her parent’s, but they didn’t read anything that was not crazy pamphlets about weird parties and religions. She made them give it to her.

Waverly isn’t sure if she appreciates the gift more than the trouble Nicole’d gone through.

***

Waverly breathes in, breathes out.

“Do I look okay?” she asks Wynonna again as they drive to the wedding venue.

“You’re not the bride, dude, relax,” Wynonna tells her.

“I’m the bridesmaid! I’m more important!”

“There isn’t even a _bride_ for you to _maid,”_ Wynonna says, and Waverly rolls her eyes.

***

Waverly frantically tries to fix everything that inevitably goes wrong as they wait for both Stephen and Robert to arrive.

She tries not to yell on the phone as she talks to the catering service.

“The address is _there,_ ” she tells them for the hundredth time, and they tell her they do not know where they’re supposed to go.

Someone pulls the phone out of her hands.

Waverly moves to maybe slap them, maybe yell at them.

Nicole eyes her, warning, as she calmly explains the address to them, endlessly patient as she repeats the street name and how to get there again and again.

She wears a form fitting, navy suit, and Waverly is very glad her dress is not tight.

Nicole hangs up, smiling at Waverly.

“Want me to keep this?” she asks, and Waverly nods, wordless as Nicole puts the phone in her pocket. “If it rings, I’ll let you know, baby”.

They stare at each other.

“You’re the prettiest girl in the world,” Nicole finally tells her, smile so wide her dimples seem to have dimples.

“You look quite… dazzling yourself,” Waverly replies with a smile.

Nicole nods in thanks before holding Waverly’s hand.

“Calm down, baby,” she says, “everything’s beautiful. It will be okay”.

Waverly believes her.

“They should arrive in ten minutes. We should get everyone seated”.

Nicole nods, walking along and dragging Wynonna with them, telling her to do something for once.

***

Stephen laughs the fond kind of laugh we only reserve for the ones we love the most when he sees Robert in his surprisingly good looking kilt.

(It’s the kind of laugh which tells you _I love you_ and _you’re the most stupid jester in the whole wide world_ and _I am so eternally grateful you have come to be my sun, my moon and all my stars_

Waverly recognizes it, eyes full of tears as she looks over the little ocean of guests, spotting Nicole looking right back at her).

They share a look.

***

Waverly cries during the entire ceremony, from the moment the men first see each other to the moment they say _I do._

Robert is crying too, she notices from the side, though he’d probably never admit it.

Stephen cries and laughs and cries again, so happy and free and so different from Robert Waverly can’t help but think of how ice cream tastes best on a hot summer day.

***

Waverly and Nicole are the second couple on the dance floor as Ezra Furman’s _I Can Change_ plays on the speakers.

“That’s us, one day,” Waverly tells Nicole, pointing at the newlyweds.

Nicole smiles down at her, her smile peanut butter on the roof of Waverly’s mouth, her eyes tea with just the smallest bit of honey. She smells of vanilla.

“I love you, too,” she replies, because she understands, of course she does.

She always does.

Her words are butterflies, floating above them as Waverly kisses her.

It is easy, and it is warm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel strangely satisfied with this story. I think I did it justice and ended it how it should end.  
> I hope you agree.
> 
> Truly and deeply, thank you for the support, the kudos, the comments and the reading. Went into this whole writing ff thing expecting very little, with really no idea if I was even any good at writing this sort of thing. It has been a welcome surprise.
> 
> So yeah, there we go.  
> Until we meet again, my friends.


End file.
